patrick.net

https://www.chronicle.com/article/Here-Comes-The-Journal-of/245068

These days, a paper that’s deemed offensive can unleash an online mob and turn an academic’s career and life upside down. It can also cause a journal editor to tiptoe away from a potentially important paper or a scholar not to put fingers to keyboard in the first place.

That’s why a group of scholars is creating The Journal of Controversial Ideas. They’re not taking submissions yet. They’re still negotiating with publishers and figuring out exactly how the journal will work. They see it as an annual, peer-reviewed, open-access publication that will print worthy papers from any discipline, and stand behind them, regardless of the backlash.

I welcome their attempt, but if they need a publisher, they are starting from a position of extreme weakness.

A publisher can cut them off and shut them down, and you can bet your bottom dollar that the publisher will have no scruples about doing just that if letting the journal live costs them money once the fuggernaut attacks their attempt at free speech, as it always does.

They need a non-centralized way to publish.