Jake, How can we most effectively support your excellent effort with this?
-Pete -- Pete Forsyth User:Peteforsyth on Meta, English Wikisource, English Wikipedia, etc. On Mon, Apr 20, 2020 at 1:22 PM Tito Dutta <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello, > Very well-written and well-supported by statistics. Thanks for sharing. > Regards. > User:Titodutta > > > On Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 1:41 AM Jake Orlowitz <[email protected]> wrote: > > > My Letter to the U.S. Office for Science and Technology Policy regarding > a > > proposal for federally mandate open access to publicly-funded research... > > > > --- > > > > Wikipedia is one of the ten most popular websites in the world. Each > month > > 200,000 editors improve over 6 million articles. This vital public > > information is viewed on 1 billion unique devices as our pages are loaded > > by people around the globe 7,000 times per second. > > > > Wikipedia is the "free encyclopedia", both in its open CC-BY-SA licensing > > as well as the unpaid contributions of its volunteer editors. Yet > > Wikipedia's hundreds of thousands of editors struggle to access scholarly > > research. And, if they are able to read and cite it, then hundreds of > > millions of readers cannot verify or explore it for deeper research. > > > > Citations are the bridge between Wikipedia articles and a broader > landscape > > of reliable, secondary sources. Citations not only allow readers to > verify > > the reliability of the facts they find in Wikipedia; through citations > > readers can also deep-dive into any given topic by exploring the books, > > scholarly publications, and news stories referenced in an article. > > > > A recently released dataset of all citations with identifiers in > Wikipedia > > found that less than half of the official versions of scholarly > > publications cited with an identifier in Wikipedia are freely available > on > > the web. This chasm of for editors and for readers is a tragedy of public > > education and digital literacy. > > > > Just look at the most recent global catastrophe with Coronavirus. By > April > > 2020 the main articles on COVID-19 had received 50 million views. > > Wikipedia's medical content--made up of more than 155,000 articles and 1 > > billion bytes of text across more than 255 languages--has been ranked as > > one of the top-3 most viewed sources for medical information on the > entire > > internet. > > > > References are essential to the public's trust in Wikipedia. Indeed, > > Wikipedia's medical content is supported by 757,855 references in English > > and 1,596,528 in other languages, for a total of 2,354,383 across all > > languages. In English 168,985 have a PMID while 261,850 do in other > > languages. This means at least 430,835 references are journal articles. > > > > What happens when those journal articles lie behind a paywall? The public > > suffers from a dearth of good information to make decisions about their > > lives as independent citizens and members of a global community. > > > > As founder of The Wikipedia Library, I arranged partnerships with dozens > of > > leading scholarly journals, to give Wikipedia editors free access to > their > > reliable content and so they would be able to do effective and rigorous > > research. This time-intensive process took 6 years to amass access to > only > > 1/5th of the most highly regarded academic publications. Frankly, > Wikipedia > > editors--volunteers who selflessly give of their intelligence and passion > > to educate--should not have to beg and borrow to access publicly-funded > > research. Readers should not hit paywalls when they are seeking > > citizen-supported knowledge. > > > > I implore you to make the bold but entirely reasonable decision and > ensure > > that taxpayers have access to the vital scientific and scholarly studies > > that they themselves fund. This is not only sensible, it is essential to > > civic health, societal progress, and human flourishing. > > > > > > Sincerely, > > Jake Orlowitz > > Founder of The Wikipedia Library > > > > > > --- > > > > "Public Access to Peer-Reviewed Scholarly Publications, Data and Code > > Resulting From Federally Funded Research" > > > > > > > https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/02/19/2020-03189/request-for-information-public-access-to-peer-reviewed-scholarly-publications-data-and-code > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > > New messages to: [email protected] > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > > <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe>
