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Sponsored by Microsoft Research Connections

UQÀM Cognitive Sciences Summer School 2014

WEB SCIENCE AND THE MIND

JULY 7 - 18 2014 Universite du Québec à Montreal, Montreal, Canada

Registration: http://www.summer14.isc.uqam.ca/page/inscription.php?lang_id=2

Full Programme: http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Temp/AbsPrelimProg3.htm

Cognitive Science and Web Science have been converging in the study of cognition:

      (i) distributed within the brain
      (ii) distributed between multiple minds
      (iii) distributed between minds and media

SPEAKERS AND TOPICS

Katy BORNER Indiana U Humanexus: Envisioning Communication and Collaboration
Les CARR U Southampton Web Impact on Society
Simon DeDEO Indiana U Collective Memory in Wikipedia
Sergey DOROGOVTSEV U Aveiro Explosive Percolation
Alan EVANS Montreal Neurological Institute Mapping the Brain Connectome
Jean-Daniel FEKETE INRIA Visualizing Dynamic Interactions
Benjamin FUNG McGill U Applying Data Mining to Real-Life Crime Investigation
Fabien GANDON INRIA Social and Semantic Web: Adding the Missing Links
Lee GILES Pennsylvania State U Scholarly Big Data: Information Extraction and Data Mining
Peter GLOOR MIT Center for Collective Intelligence Collaborative Innovation Networks
Jennifer GOLBECK U Maryland You Can't Hide: Predicting Personal Traits in Social Media
Robert GOLDSTONE Indiana U Learning Along with Others
Stephen GRIFFIN U Pittsburgh New Models of Scholarly Communication for Digital Scholarship
Wendy HALL U Southampton It's All In the Mind
Harry HALPIN U Edinburgh Does the Web Extend the Mind - and Semantics?
Jiawei HAN U Illinois/Urbana Knowledge Mining in Heterogeneous Information Networks 
Stevan HARNAD UQAM Memetrics: Monitoring Measuring and Mapping Memes
Jim HENDLER Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute The Data Web
Tony HEY Microsoft Research Connections Open Science and the Web
Francis HEYLIGHEN Vrije U Brussel Global Brain: Web as Self-organizing Distributed Intelligence
Bryce HUEBNER Georgetown U Macrocognition: Situated versus Distributed
Charles-Antoine JULIEN Mcgill U Visual Tools for Interacting with Large Networks
Kayvan KOUSHA U Wolverhampton Web Impact Metrics for Research Assessment
Guy LAPALME U Montreal   Natural Language Processing on the Web 
Vincent LARIVIERE U Montreal Scientific Interaction Before and Since the Web
Yang-Yu LIU Northeastern U Controllability and Observability of Complex Systems
Richard MENARY U Macquarie  Enculturated Cognition
Thomas MALONE MIT Collective Intelligence: What is it?  How to measure it?  Increase it?
Adilson MOTTER Northwestern U Bursts, Cascades and Time Allocation
Cameron NEYLON PLOS Network Ready Research: The Role of Open Source and Open Thinking
Takashi NISHIKAWA Northwestern U Visual Analytics: Network Structure Beyond Communities
Filippo RADICCHI Indiana U Analogies between Interconnected and Clustered Networks
Mark ROWLANDS Miami U Extended Mentality: What It Is and Why It Matters
Robert RUPERT U Colorado What is Cognition and How Could it be Extended? 
Derek RUTHS McGill U Social Informatics
Judith SIMON ITAS Socio-Technical Epistemology
John SUTTON Macquarie U Transactive Memory and Distributed Cognitive Ecologies 
Georg THEINER Villanova U Domains and Dimensions of Group Cognition
Peter TODD Indiana U Foraging in the World Mind and Online

Fred Friend, born April 7th 1941, died on April 23rd. He had been a dedicated, tireless and inspired advocate for OA ever since the idea was first baptized with a name (in Budapest 2001/2002, where Fred was one of the original co-drafters and co-signatories of the BOAI).

Fred's commitment to OA did not, I believe, originate only ex officio, as Director of Scholarly Communication at UCL, in the serials crisis with which he and all other library directors have had to struggle for decades. Fred also had a profound sense of justice (one that extended beyond local happenings, sub specie aeternitatis). He simply felt that OA was right. And what he did on OA's behalf he did out of character and conviction. (He was also extremely forgiving, as I can humbly attest.)

Fred was, in his own words, a Friend of Open Access. It is undeniable that OA has now lost a precious ally. But I think it is equally undeniable (and I am sure Fred knew it too) that OA is unstoppable now. That is true in no small part thanks to the efforts of this modest and faithful Friend.

Heartfelt sympathy to Fred's family; I hope that in their pain they will also find room for some pride.

Stevan Harnad

(partial list, to be updated: please provide corrections and additions):

- Start with a 2/3 supermajority, generated by a smear campaign and inciting mobs to violence

- Gerrymander the electoral districts

- Adopt laws to control the media

- Buy up the media

- Recruit and buy up corrupt oligarchs

- Re-write the constitution

- Adopt new laws and amendments whenever desired

- Retire the judiciary and appoint your own

- Take over the national bank presidency

- Take over private pensions

- Nationalise businesses and properties, then re-privatize to cronies

- Conduct press and police campaigns to smear the opposition

- Use EU subsidies to fund government electoral campaign

- Limit electoral campaigning in media

- Fund private foundations to do limitless media promotion of government

- Use taxes and subsidies to lower utility costs to disguise economic decline

- Blame all economic ills on opposition

- Oblige tenement owners to advertise utility savings

- Enfranchise non-citizens in adjoining countries to vote; facilitate their voting

- Make it as difficult as possible for citizens living abroad to vote (misinformation, red tape)

- Fund the fraudulent creation of many bogus opposition parties to create confusion in the ballot box

- Have oligarchs buy up all poster campaign space for government posters

- Adopt laws restricting campaign posting in public view

- Use media control to foster a popular climate of hatred toward the opposition and xenophobia toward the outside world

- Borrow bail-out funds at extortionate rates from Russia for nuclear plant building

- Use the loan to fund “Hungary is Performing Better” campaign

- Leak innuendos and initiate criminal proceedings against the opposition weekly, dropping them once they prove groundless and have already done their damage

[Please re-post this list amended and expanded: Maybe there's hope to get it to go viral before the elections]

Bravo to Professor Eva Balogh, whose Hungarian Spectrum has been selected for archiving by the Library of Congress. Eva's historic contribution -- crucial and ongoing -- to exposing and fighting back against the sinister downward forces holding Hungary in their thrall today eminently deserved this historic recognition (and I am sure there will be more): Eva, you have been a tireless critic and chronicler, drawing on your scholarly expertise as a historian, as well as personal experiance and an uncompromising ethical integrity. Végtelen hálával gratulálunk mindnyájan. -- István

How multitudes of people
can gather to gawk daily
at these magnificent, miserable creatures,
all brutally wrenched
from their devastated families
and forced to perform round after round
of cheap Skinnerian circus tricks,
pitilessly imprisoned
for the rest of their wretched, ruined lives
in holding containers,
tormented day and night
by the bouncing echoes
from their own hopeless sonar cries,
food-deprived and "trained"
to do whatever it takes
to draw delighted cheers
from grinning crowds of humans of all ages...

Did it really require this revealing new movie, Blackfish, to open our eyes to the ugly, shameful fact that this, and all things like this, are wrong, horribly, unforgivably, wrong?

That we provide the mindless market for such heartless abuse, in order to make our children laugh, is as much a condemnation of the sociopathic spectatorship as of the merciless, mercenary management of sadistic sea circuses -- and all their land counterparts.

Perhaps the most chilling anomaly is how the "trainers" -- of whom some, clearly, "turned," eventually, after years of having been willing accomplices to the abuse of these helpless animals -- were themselves "trained" (by the management along with self-deception) to overlook the obvious, in exchange for the fees and the celebrity ("just following orders"? "being professional"?). It seems to have been various blends of venality and sensation-seeking, though some got into it naively, and then got attached to their prisoners and stayed so as to use what little leverage they had to make their fates less worse, rather than abandon them altogether. -- Or maybe that was just what they said for the camera? (I hope not.)

But most macabre of all was that some professed to have become Seaworld trainers to fulfill a dream that Seaworld itself had instilled in them as a child.

---

Tilikum's punishment for having been savagely kidnapped and relentlessly abused for decades:

Solitary confinement
to provide sperm
for breeding more orcas
to be wrenched from their mothers
and put into entertainment servitude
for the rest of their miserable lives
to inspire more children
about the wonders of the sea

Ring 1: 2012: Fidesz Government (i.e., Mr. Viktor Orban, P.M.) decides to use parliamentary supermajority power (yet again), this time to reduce the number of tobacco concession licenses countrywide from 40,000 to about 5,500.

Ring 2: Ostensible pretext: To reduce smoking

Ring 3: Owners of about 40,000 tobacco shops ("Trafiks") countrywide, some of them decades-old family businesses, are informed that all of them will lose their right to sell tobacco and must apply to a nationwide assessment  that will distribute the 5,500 licenses that will remain.

Ring 4: The assessment takes place, and the recipients almost all turn out to be Fidesz supporters and their families, some families and individuals being awarded multiple concessions (one each to the husband and wife in one family, 9 to the cleaning lady of another family,).

Ring 5: Almost none of the original 40,000 concessionaires were awarded licenses; almost all those who did win them had no prior experience in the trade: their only common attribute was their Fidesz connection.

Ring 6: News of the outcome emerges; Fidesz denies bias: licenses were awarded to the best qualified.

Ring 7: Testimony as well as tapes emerge of the deliberations in selecting the winners, and the explicit criterion is Fidesz fidelity.

Ring 8: The public demands to see the data on the deliberations.

Ring 9: Orban uses Fidesz supermajority power (yet again), to make the data inaccessible to the public; for good measure, evidence also being systematically destroyed.

Ring 10: July 1 2013: Fidesz preparing to declare its anti-smoking campaign a great success, and to declare Hungary again a model for the rest of the world, as it is in so many other things: finance, governance, justice, constitutionality, and anti-corruption measures.

Ring 11: July 3, 2013: EU votes to put Hungary's government under monitoring for breaching fundamental rights: EU vote is bipartisan, supported by both the left and the right.

Ring 12: Orban uses Fidesz supermajority power (yet again) in a Hungarian parliamentary vote that declares the EU parliamentary vote a biassed, illegal and anti-Hungarian conspiracy of the EU Green/liberal/left under the influence of the international business and bank lobby opposed to Fidesz's utility expense rebate to Hungarian voters...

---

Added December 31 2012:

"The cardinal law... contains a provision that gives the Parliament its own military, a Parlia-military"

"it seems increasingly likely that the Hungarian government is heading toward the creation of a police state"

(K. L. Scheppele)

---

I’ve just read the timely recent observations in Hungarian Spectrum by Princeton University's international constitutional scholar, Professor Kim Lane Scheppele, as well as her earlier excellent lecture on the new Hungarian constitution (delivered at CEU nearly a year ago).

Professor Scheppele's insights were and continue to be astute. But one point on which she does not seem to be realistic is her insistence that the problem of undoing the profound damage being done in Hungary by the current governing party's electoral supermajority and its increasingly autocratic leader's use of that supermajority power can and hence must be solved by Hungarians alone.

On the contrary, Hungary’s long history of red/white polarization and scape-goating has clearly culminated, in the latest pendulum swing, in the entrenchment of the white side’s ideology — a primitive, parochial, petty, punitive and increasingly paranoid world-view — in a quackish new constitution drafted, adopted and since amended at will nearly 2000 times by the governing party's supermajority.

Undoing this systematic, cumulative and self-perpetuating damage would require far more substantial and unified internal opposition now than Hungary seems capable of mustering (including the election of a supermajority in the opposite direction, under increasingly self-serving election restrictions voted into law at will by the ruling supermajority).

If global scrutiny and support on behalf of democracy and justice are not ratcheted up dramatically, Hungary will become ever more inextricably engulfed by the opportunistic tar-baby that a plurality made the fateful mistake of embracing in 2010.

(International sanctions would certainly be infinitely preferable to an unopposed descent into dictatorship -- or to civil war.)

On Monday November 26 2012, a Hungarian MP, Márton Gyöngyösy, deputy leader of the extreme right "Jobbik" Party, called for the creation of a race-based list, on the grounds of risks to Hungarian national security.

This all-too-familiar burst of base bigotry from the Jobbik party in Hungary's parliament has deflected attention from an even more ominous event that passed unnoticed, in the very same place, on the very same day: Electoral gerrymandering designed to keep the governing Fidesz Party in power.

As Marton Dornbach points out below in his remarkably insightful commentary from the Hungarian Spectrum -- reproduced in full and slightly updated by the author -- Fidesz is just playing "good cop" to Jobbik's "bad cop".

The two right-wing parties are only distinguishable by the fact that Jobbik's hallmark is psychopathic bigotry, whereas Fidesz's hallmark is psychopathic opportunism. Both are sinking Hungary deeper and deeper, downward and backward, toward an ugly, resentful autocracy and xenophobia to which Hungary is no stranger, and from which it has not yet made the sincere effort to dissociate itself that has been made by the other nations of Europe.

Hungary has a majority of decent, fair-minded people, like every other nation in the world. It is not beyond hope that world outrage at this pair of incidents may help them to rally against these two pernicious parties, Fidesz and Jobbik, that have already done Hungary so much harm, and oust them decisively, once and for all, in the next election, despite Fidesz's shameless and disgraceful efforts to make this so much more difficult to do.

---

Marton Dornbach: "The thing that is really important here, in my opinion, is not that Márton Gyöngyösi is a Nazi. Most of us realized a while ago that Jobbik is a virulently racist Neo-Nazi party. This is no news. It is also no news, unfortunately, that the ruling party is willing to go to great lengths to avoid unequivocal and firm condemnation of Nazi talk (incidentally, the most disgracefully equivocal part of Zsolt Németh’s response was the formulation he chose: he said the number of Jews in government “is not particularly closely related” to the severity of the conflict in the Middle East /”nem nagyon kapcsolódik ahhoz”/)

"No, the most newsworthy aspect of this incident is the timing. Gyöngyösi’s statements came five days after the ceasefire in Gaza was announced. So there was nothing particularly topical about his sick proposal. In any case, thugs like him never needed a pretext for Jew-baiting. Why now then?

"Well, it so happens that, on the very same day that MGy made this demented proposal, the Fidesz supermajority put a stake through the barely-beating heart of Hungarian democracy by abolishing universal voting rights and introducing an exceptionally restrictive form of mandatory voter registration. You wouldn’t know this from the foreign media coverage of the Monday parliamentary session; but that’s precisely the point. Especially in the international media, but in Hungary too, the abolition of universal voting rights was completely eclipsed by this Nazi provocation. After all, viewed from London or Washington or Brussels it is so much easier to relate to Nazism than to election technicalities in a small country. So much easier for journalists to cover the former than the latter.

"But let’s put things in perspective. Unfortunately, there always were and perhaps there always will be sick racists who harbor genocidal fantasies. The fact that Hungarian society as a whole fails to ostracize such people and/or treat them as psychiatric cases is a sign of a civilizational breakdown. However, there is no real danger of Gyöngyösi’s proposal being implemented (although in this respect we all know that nothing is impossible). Without denying that anti-Semitism is alarmingly widespread in Hungary and has a potential to produce violent outbursts, I think it is safe to say that the only group of people in Hungary that faces systematic discrimination and harassment on account of ethnic origins is the Roma. So we should see MGy’s statement as a purely symbolic act of transgression whose sole purpose was to shock and draw attention.

"Unlike MGy’s proposal, the election law passed on the very same day is certain to have very real future consequences. It drastically reduces the chances of Orban’s opposition. Let’s be clear about this: the introduction of severely restrictive voter registration rules in a country with a perfectly well-functioning central registry is an unprecedented disgrace. It is the most overt violation of basic democratic principles even in the sordid record of the Orban regime’s power grab. This is the outrage that is being overlooked amid the (absolutely justified) uproar about the latest Nazi provocation by Jobbik. Look at the foreign coverage of what happened on Monday in the Hungarian parliament: there is no reference to the election law, no reference to Zsolt Nemeth’s appalling non-response, while most outlets state that the Hungarian government has condemned the provocation “in the strongest terms” (if only!) The whole story is a PR coup for Fidesz. In keeping with the line of defense adopted by numerous diplomatic and journalistic apologetes of the regime, this incident has given Fidesz yet another opportunity to play good cop to Jobbik's s bad cop.

To conclude, I find it almost impossible not to raise the obvious, admittedly speculative, question: Cui bono? Who is benefitting from all of this? To my mind at least the timing of this crass provocation invites the conjecture that there may be (tacit or not-so-tacit) co-operation between the Neo-Nazi Jobbik party and the ruling Fidesz supermajority. And let’s not forget here two points: it is not inconceivable that Fidesz may need to form a coalition with Jobbik to stay in power after 2014; and Jobbik is the other party, beside Fidesz, which stands to gain from the new voter registration rules.
      -- original comment, edited by the author, Marton Dornbach

---

Here is some background reading on last year's symptoms of Hungary's downward trajectory already noted in this blog:

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Hungary's Philosophy Affair: Bringing It All Out Into The Open

Open Letter to President of Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Response of President of Hungarian Academy of Sciences

The Hungarian Philosopher Affair: On Nyiri on Martyrdom

The Hungarian Philosopher Affair: On Hornok on 1919

The Hungarian Philosopher Affair: On Vancsó on Smoke Screens

The Hungarian Philosopher Affair: On "Magyar" On White Collar Crime

Quod Erat ad Demonstrandum (QED)

The straw poll on whether or not to continue the American Scientist Open Access (AmSci) Forum (and if so, who should be the new moderator) is complete (the full results are reproduced at the end of this message).

The vote is for (1) continuing the Forum, under (2) the moderatorship of Richard Poynder.

The AmSci list has now been migrated to http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal where the BOAI list is also being hosted.

AmSci Forum members need not re-subscribe. All subscriptions have been automatically transferred to the new host site.

The name of the list has been changed to the Global Open Access List (GOAL) to reflect the fact that Open Access is no longer just an American or a Scientific matter. It has become a global movement.

The old AmSci Forum Archives (1998-2011) will stay up at the Sigma Xi site (indefinitely, I hope -- though we do have copies of the entire archive).

The new GOAL archive is at: http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pipermail/goal/

Stevan Harnad

---

Below are the complete results of Straw Poll on whether to continue the Forum, and on who should be the new moderator:

AGAINST CONTINUING AMSCI:

ARIF JINHA: I believe it would be better to have one forum, the BOAI. This forum has developed a doctrinal bias defined by the values and personality of its leadership. Though the leadership is to be commended for its credibility and vigour, it is not without its blind spots. It has not always OPEN to a diversity of perspectives. AMSCI is driven by assertive and competitive advocacy for mandates over Gold OA publishing. The rush to conclusion on the right path is premature and overly authoritative in its expression, therefore it is alienating. In truth, we have only really got started with the web in the last 10 years and authority is completely flattened by the learning curve. The BOAI is much wider in its representation of Open Access alternatives, it is therefore more neutral as well as having a wider reach for the promotion of Green OA. It means less duplication and less work devoted to instant communication, giving more time to develop a rigorous and scientific approach to meta-scholarship in the digital age.

FOR CONTINUING AMSCI:

DANA ROTH: I would disagree with Arif Jinha, in that it is the 'assertive and competitive advocacy for mandates over Gold OA publishing' that make AMSCI such an interesting listserv.

SUBBIAH ARUNACHALAM: First, I wish to express my grateful thanks to Stevan for all that he has done so far, and in particular for moderating this Forum for so long and so well. That he will continue to devote much of his time to promoting open access and institutional repositories gives me strength to do the same. Second, if Richard Poynder agrees (or if we could persuade him) to moderate this list, there is nothing like it. The baton would have moved to safe hands. Not only he has the stamina of a long distance runner, but he is also endowed with the qualities needed for a moderator. He is knowledgeable and levelheaded. Welcome Richard!

DOMINIQUE BABINI: Discussions and ideas in this forum are also inspiring for regional OA forums and lists, e.g., the Latin America and the Caribbean Open Access List (LLAAR, in Spanish). Thank you, Stevan, for your dedication as moderator all these years, and especially for your new OA initiatives and ideas. Thank you for your Skype contribution at the OA Experts Meeting last week in UNESCO headquarters, where we missed you [in person].  I also support Richard Poynder as [new] moderator for this Forum. 

MICHAEL E. SMITH: I am in favor of continuing the list, and either of the people you mentioned as potential moderators would be good choices.

PAOLA GARGIULO: I also agree that the list should continue. I'm in favour or Richard Poynder as moderator. Hope you will continue to contribute.

PETER SUBER: If Richard is willing to moderate, I vote for him.  I second Alma's reasons why Richard would do well in this role.  I second Arthur's best wishes to you, and I second (or third) Barbara and Hélène's tribute to your work.  Finally, as the former moderator of SOAF and BOAI, I welcome you to civilian life.  It's amazing what one can do when one has more time to do it.

BERNARD RENTIER: I vote for Richard Poynder. The excellence of his critical and fair papers speaks for his designation. If he is willing to do that, I am sure he will be an outstanding moderator. And that this will let Stevan be even more tirelessly to the point in every debate!

TOM COCHRANE: The value of the Forum cannot be overstated. It has provided a unique service in assessing the events and health of OA developments. It would be a regressive step in several ways if it were to fall over. It is not too much to claim that its way of charting developments, alerting readers to new issues, identifying useful research and work on OA, and in your hands, reminding its readership of the main issues – all these have had a direct impact on practical developments. This has occurred to a degree that no single one of us – from whatever part of the world -  can comprehensively take in. But believe me, it has played a vital role. But individual workloads need to be shared, and we at QUT understand your reasoning. We are happy with the Richard Poynder suggestion.

ELOY RODRIGUES: I also support Richard Poynder for moderator. I strongly support the continuation of the AmSci Forum, and I regret your decision of stepping down as moderator (even though I understand your reasons, and I do hope that it will turn out the right decision for you, and your efforts for OA progress). Thanks for your tireless work for Open Access! All the best (from Rio de Janeiro, where I was also archivangilizing for ID/OA mandates, at the Portuguese-Brazilian OA conference).

KEITH JEFFERY: I am sorry it has come to this; you know I support your point of view and moderation does require correction of misconceptions as well as just posting. I wish the Amsci list to continue and Richard is, of course, an excellent choice as future moderator.

ANDREW A ADAMS: I am in favour of the forum continuing to operate. I feel Richard would make an excellent new moderator.

PIPPA SMART: I am in favour of the forum continuing and would be very happy for Richard Poynder to moderate.

MARC COUTURE: I definitely wish the forum to continue. I may be only the occasional contributor, but I've always been a very steady reader. As to you not being the moderator anymore, I think it's even a good thing, not because I share the opinion that a moderator should be neutral and discreet, but because it will spare you some precious time you could devote to useful purposes, OA-related or not. Note that I assume we will continue to benefit, in the forum, from the seemingly inexhaustible energy and the flawless, razor-sharp logic of our "weary" archivangelist.

BARRY MAHON: As a long time stirring stick in the OA (hard to know what word to use to describe it) world, and having crossed swords with both Stevan and Richard over the years, I have a heavy heart in accepting Stevan's decision but an uplift that Richard has volunteered. It will, I wish, go on....and I'll be there, or here, whichever is the more appropriate.

JEAN-CLAUDE GUÉDON: I also think this list should go on. And  having Richard or Thomas moderate is a good idea too.

BOB PARKS: Congratulations on stepping down. I hope it gives you more time to pursue OA!!! Either Krichel or Poynder would be a good moderator.  I fear that Krichel is over committed.

HEATHER MORRISON: Thanks very much for moderating the list all these years! I hope that the list will continue, and would support either Richard Poynder or Thomas Krichel as moderators.

SALLY MORRIS: The support for Richard as moderator of the continuing list seems clear. We really don't need to see all the messages - I thought that was the point of keeping them off the list?

THOMAS KRICHEL: I think it should continue, as it appears to be the largest and most active forum.  I volunteer to do it….  If Richard wants to do it, I'd be happy not to.

RICHARD POYNDER: Well I certainly vote for it to continue. I would even put my name down for the moderator's hat if it was felt appropriate for a journalist to run such a forum, and people believed I could do the job adequately

ALMA SWAN: I am writing to nominate Richard Poynder as the new moderator for the AmSci Forum. I think he brings the right qualities - amongst them honesty, fairness, intellectual curiousness and efficiency - and is hugely respected as an independent, critical thinker on the issues that AmSci covers. I want the Forum to continue because it is a real discussion list rather than a bulletin board…

HELENE BOSC: In memory of the remarkable work done by Stevan Harnad for Open Access through this list, during 14 years, I wish it continues... Richard Poynder would be a perfect moderator!

BARBARA KIRSOP: If Stevan feels he can better operate in support of OA not as the moderator, then it would be great indeed if Richard Poynder would adopt the mantle. I think AMSCI should continue. I am somewhat in favour of a name change to highlight OA rather than the US - a name change could be a mini-re-launch perhaps and bring in new contributors - a fitting tribute to Stevan's past efforts.

ARTHUR SALE: May I wish you the best as non-moderator. It is the right decision for you, I think. This may be a shock to you that I think that it is a plus, but I think we need to get new ideas into the OA transition, and you have done your bit and a lot more… and perhaps I can even convince you eventually that the Titanium Road is the way to go now! You will be bombarded with messages begging you to reconsider, but I do think it is the right decision. Then you can enjoy being yourself without constraint. No one person can bear the weight of the world, not even Atlas.

IRYNA KUCHMA: The AmSci Open Access Forum is an active discussion forum (SOAF and BOAI are more like the announcement lists) and my answer is (1) definitely to continue. It's sad that you've decided to step down as a moderator. I wish I could help you with moderating it, but I am travelling a lot and sometimes not able to moderate the BOAI on time…. Hope you will find the ways to continue.

EUGENE GARFIELD: When I think about Stevan Harnad another information pioneer comes to mind. The Belgian documentalist Paul Otlet. His collaborator Henri LaFontaine,  received the Nobel Peace Prize. That's the kind of recognition that Stevan deserves.

MICHAEL KURTZ: I liked that AMSCI reflected your point of view, I value that,
and expect I will always.  I hope I will always be able to discover
it, perhaps you will frequently post.

THIERRY CHANIER : First of all, I would like to deeply thank Stevan  for his  continuous work over these more than 10 years. This forum is a very important place where supporters of OA can find information, and share their actions. I would be happy if Richard Poynder becomes our moderator. As Barbara (Kirsop) put it : it may be time to change the name of our forum, forget the American qualifier in order  to reflect its international wider status.

TONY HEY: I think that Stevan must take some credit from the UK Government's decision to insist on open access to publications and data ... Well done Stevan and thanks for all your tireless proselytizing on behalf of open access!

In September 2011 the AmSci Open Access Forum went into its 14th year. I think I have been moderating the Forum long enough, and so I'm stepping down as moderator, effective the end of December.

Subscribers will vote on whether to continue the AmSci Forum or whether the other two OA Forums (SOAF and BOAI) are now sufficient to air views on OA.

I will of course remain active in OA and will be posting to the existing Forums (and AmSci, if it continues) and/or the OA Archivangelism blog whenever the spirit moves or the occasion calls!

Stevan Harnad