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October 2020

I've been thinking a bit this week about the problematic performance of peer review in front of editors - and commissioning editors for books. When a reviewer knows that other reports will be sought, they often do not want to be seen as the "less rigorous" reviewer.

There is a risk that, when one may rely on the editor commissioning the report, if one is generous, one may be seen as "less of an expert". Another way, perhaps, in which dubious competitive systems are baked into our publication practices.

This morning I'm filling in the "geek culture" and subcultural analysis parts of my piracy book. Geek as originally termed was "a carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken or snake".

I love it when suppliers try to raise the prices we pay them by 20% at a time when our members, who pay us, are facing 25% budget cuts.

R number in London estimated at 2.86. 300+ deaths per day. Still no protection for the clinically extremely vulnerable, the group "with existing conditions" who are dying in droves.

A colleague has remarked to me on how intrusive MS Teams is, auto-starting, butting in with notifications etc.

I replied that someone will have said: "we want Teams to be THE place around which remote work revolves. Our mission is to have Teams at the middle of all remote work ecologies. Design decisions need to prioritise Teams as the attention-centre of a user's online interactions."

In actuality, though, systems like Teams (Slack, Discord, Mattermost -- all of which I use) are hugely distracting and detract from my ability to get work done by intruding on my concentration.

Morning so far has consisted of 1,000 words of book writing on _Warez_, email clearout, and now an interview on digital preservation. Then it's a peer review for a research council, some PhD student reading, uploading a video to our repository, and then book proofing.

In recent months I've really felt the cold like never before - I always used to feel warm, all the time. This is leading to some ridiculous indoor apparel that isn't going to win any fashion awards any time soon.

Dealing with a really horrible typesetting foul-up in a book. All DOIs have been set with em-dashes replacing hyphens, breaking loads of them!

Research Pro is good on the UCU legal action against the government: "It is noticeable that the union is directing its action against the government and not vice-chancellors. UCU may have a stronger case in arguing that employers have breached health and safety in the workplace".

This was my immediate thought on hearing about it. It seems unlikely that "deciding to ignore advice" constitutes the government acting illegally -- particularly when they have not shut down other industries

Universities also have autonomy over what they do/how they teach (obviously curbed by financial considerations/soft power), so could have decided not to bring students back and to teach almost entirely remotely (as we did at Birkbeck).

We've been bowdlerized by Cambridge University Press's stylesheet!

And who will ever know what that word was now it has been thoroughly Streisand effected?

Somewhere out there, a commissioning editor is doubtless encouraging scholars to write on "the literature of contagion, or Cov-Lit19".

Happy end of OA week. Here's the champagne from our AOP win at OLH. Sorry, but probably the only thing this week that I can't share with everyone!

Hey! Hard copies of REASSEMBLING SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATIONS just arrived!

...although I am by now so familiar with this work that I do not think I'll be reading it again any time soon...!

this was my 6th book. And easily the hardest work. I think the result is good, but I do not want to edit a book again for a long time.

We've got a partnership for Opening the Future with @ProjectMUSE to host the OA frontlist books and the subscription backlist titles.

This is my biggest open-access week announcement and it's really important. Here's a new business model for open-access monographs with no author-facing charges. @COPIMproject Work Package 3 is going to flip a university press to OA using it. https://eve.gd/2020/10/22/backlist-to-the-future-a-new-business-model-for-university-presses-and-open-access-books/

What's so important about this? First, it's dynamic. It isn't an "all or nothing" approach to OA books; we can get started releasing OA books ASAP. Second, other university presses can replicate this. We'll be writing it all up an releasing the code for our platform.

It's also affordable. The pandemic looks set to wreak havoc on library budgets. As above, though, this model scales dynamically, so if we can't release all books OA, that's better than nothing. If we meet our targets we're looking at 10.67 EUR (about $12.50 USD) per book.

also pictured: @ScholTom as able time-travel assistant to Doc Eve

Hurrah! I have the PDF and epub versions of the full version of Reassembling Scholarly Communications. I'll put them online tomorrow - thanks to everyone who asked!

More OA stats for open-access week. Of my 38 peer-reviewed articles, 34 are gold open access. The remaining 4 are green.

In the past 48 hours on approximate average, someone in the UK died of Covid every 6.5 minutes. Most of the deaths will be said to have been "only" those with existing conditions. There remains no support or additional advice to protect the clinically vulnerable (shielding).

It's open access week, which means that we're kicking off today with a Library Publishing Coalition community call, focusing on @janeway_systems!

For the first weekend in months I didn't do any research writing. Felt bad about this, but it's also given me time to recharge, which I need from time to time. Can feel I'm going to be on fire tomorrow am, though!

I am very tired and am going to take a weekend. However, I am also excited for next week, which is open access week and an announcement we hope to be able to make.

Even as infection rates soar there is still no shielding of the most vulnerable individuals.

Now the government is playing the mental health card as a reason not to. Yes, that needs consideration. But if they really meant this, they'd offer mental health support to shielders.

"Advisers said it was about striking a balance - protecting health but not being too stringent with measures that can take a toll on people's wellbeing"

You know what's actually taking a toll on people's wellbeing? The refusal to protect the most vulnerable in the slightest way.

For the record, I used to work in "cyber" security. I've written web application firewalls, nabbed some bug bounties. You can see the early entries on my blog from decades ago showing some of my exploits! It's a great job. But ballet dancers retraining for this is heartbreaking.

Oh dear. I see Trump has got wind of Regeneron's antibody cocktail, the only viable Covid-19 treatment for people like me with secondary immunodeficiency, so now I suspect we'll be in the realm of shortages as he gives it to everyone.

A follow up note: book peer reviews are paid. But it's an insulting amount especially when requested by massive for-profits. This is why I prefer reviewing for entities that share the values of what I want the university to be. Not for profit, open to everyone.

I'd rather do that for free than get £60 from MegaPublisher.

I'm already paid to do it. It's in my university contract. What I _do_ select on is the type of entity asking me to review. Turning down for-profit publishers more often these days so I can spend my reviewing time working for OA outfits and university presses. https://x.com/timeshighered/status/1315282758860709890

What this person is actually asking for is that publishers remunerate reviewers. This would open the field of reviewing to include precarious HE workers etc. But it also then double remunerates members of staff with HE jobs. This funding will also come out of library budgets.

Other unintended consequences:

* greater pre-selectivity before review
* pressure on editors to ensure that only material they think will pass review is sent out

Miffed with a cryptic crossword clue this week. "Offensive Dutch, English or Spanish supporters lobbed bottles (4)". It must be "push" as in "an offensive" because it's lobbed (backwards) inside (bottles) words in the clue. But "Dutch, English" is superfluous and misleading.

There was something I read a while back about how the role of the crossword setter was to lose graciously to the solver. This clue doesn't feel like it's playing fair/graciously.

Preparing for my seminar this evening on Susan Leigh Star's The Ethnography of Infrastructure and wondering to what extent human senses can be considered "infrastructure" within Star's definition.

I do miss seeing @BirkbeckUoL light up at night, in person, but there's a certain joyful parallel in watching the central stats about number of students joining their online seminars come through.

OK, whoever went for "knowledge vacuum" as the headline for Dyson's institute being awarded degree-awarding powers deserves some kind of medal.

14,542 new infections yesterday in the UK. "You are still at risk of severe illness" and you should "stay at home where possible". But no comprehensive shielding advice to protect those who can't.

Amid the rocky press about in-person university return, we had approximately 5,000 students successfully sign in this evening for our online classes at @BirkbeckUoL. Here I am celebrating it all working on the exercise bike, with comment from @jg_smith.

Roger Penrose, a winner today of the Nobel Prize in Physics, was a Reader in Physics at @BirkbeckUoL. A monumental career.

That L*aurence Fox turned out to be such a horrible fool - and not like his character Hathaway in Lewis - is one of the grave disappointments of our time.

I'm not going to shut up about this. The press and government keep going on about how it's "only" those with preexisting conditions who are dying. There is still no revised advice to shield us, apart from "you are still at risk" and "work at home, if you can". Many can't.

Charles Dance as Mr Tulkinghorn in the BBC Bleak House adaptation is just perfection at oozing malice. Quite remarkable.

Today's research is into Operation Site Down (2005). Some interesting studies of different penalties for different types of Scener. Harshest penalties go to group admins and topsite operators, while couriers get off comparatively lightly. Curiously, no crackers were sentenced.

It also reveals some interesting age demographics of Sceners. Siteops are usually around age 30 while couriers and crackers tend to be much younger. Testers and packagers were the oldest, although this is a limited sample with a high standard deviation.

I should have said, actually, that _suppliers_ were actually the harshest sentenced individuals.

What's also fascinating is the way in which the criminality of these activities is almost incidental to the compulsive, addictive behaviour/participation in a competitive subcultural reputational economy. 'I stayed up until 5 or 6 in the morning day after day' a defendant writes.

'It was the illusion of power and fame that got to me' it continues. That said, it _is_ the criminality of the whole enterprise that seems to make it difficult and engender a high level of competition and danger. But fundamentally, the warez scene seems to be an adrenaline sport.

The R rate has risen to between 1.3 and 1.6 in the UK. And still there is no government advice for clinically vulnerable people about shielding.

This morning I'm continuing to write about law enforcement raids on the scene and detailing the workings of the FBI's 2005 raids in Operation Site Down.

Saw Birkbeck's new owl logo and now my Google search history includes "can owls wink". Seems they can! A little more embarrassed by "can owls wear face masks" but there we go.

On leave today to recharge before teaching next week, but I wanted to do a bit of writing anyway. Today's amusing find for my Warez book is that multiple reputable sources show that the notorious piracy group Fairlight was founded by the Chairman of the San Diego Republican Party

This fuels part of my analysis of the competitive, capitalist-economy-like circulations within this subculture. While there's a perception of a socialistic bent, that's not really how it works.