NIH RFI Attracts Bad Apples
eDonkey2000 plebes, ASAPbio, self-styled radicals, and Eisen clones cry “open”
Yesterday, Prachee Avasthi of Arcadia Science — a fund founded with money from the sale of eDonkey2000 and some crypto schemes — published an attack on scientific publishers in the Wall Street Journal. It was timed to coincide with the last day to file responses to the NIH RFI on publication caps:
Avasthi was the head of ASAPbio until last year. ASAPbio issued their own response, which calls for preprints all the way, baby.
All this is designed to accomplish what Arcadia is already doing but which I’m fairly sure nobody has noticed because making something “open” doesn’t mean squat if you haven’t done the requisite brand-building, created community engagement, or fostered the trust of an audience. And guess what? Those things — plus maintaining and developing them further — are expensive and time-consuming, requiring the skills of professionals from many disciplines.