Cool thanks for the link on Glossa. I always thought it was possible for a collective resignation of an editorial board but I've never seen it realized.
I'm curious why/how it was possible for them to do it. The Wikipedia link mentions that there was a disagreement between the editors and Elsevier. How were the editors able to collectively organize and leave en masse? What can editorial boards of other journals learn from this?
There were a number of favourable circumstances. I think the most important two were that 1) the editorial board had many who considered Open Access to be important, and 2) it was a relatively small field in which they managed to get their transition relatively well publicised, which allowed people to submit their articles there without negatively impacting their career.
Interestingly, I'm working on a blog post right now on what others can learn from this (because I'm trying to make it happen more often), so if you (or others reading this) are interested, you can follow along via https://tinyletter.com/Flockademic
> I always thought it was possible for a collective resignation of an editorial board but I've never seen it realized.
As can be seen in the Elsevier Wikipedia page, it has happened several times (not often enough). The Journal of Algorithms case is instructive [1]. Any individual researcher that "fights" the publisher will lose out, but collectively in a concerted move one can be successful.
I think Don Knuth provided enough credibility to transfer the prestige of the journal, and enough of a towering figure to give everyone the impetus to go ahead with the defection collectively.
It would be very interesting to examine cases where this worked successfully and where it failed (or wasn't attempted) and see what differentiates them. I'm pretty sure Elsevier is examining these cases very carefully...
I'm curious why/how it was possible for them to do it. The Wikipedia link mentions that there was a disagreement between the editors and Elsevier. How were the editors able to collectively organize and leave en masse? What can editorial boards of other journals learn from this?