Comments on: The Article and My Intellectual Socialist View. http://smashingred.com/blog/miscellanea/the-article-and-my-intellectual-socialist-view/ Jay Gilmore on Websites and Marketing for Small Business. Wed, 07 Jan 2009 13:35:12 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Jay Gilmore http://smashingred.com/blog/miscellanea/the-article-and-my-intellectual-socialist-view/#comment-15 Jay Gilmore Thu, 19 Jan 2006 21:05:34 +0000 http://smashingred.com/blog/2006/01/19/the-article-and-my-intellectual-socialist-view/#comment-15 Jules, thanks for dropping in again, I agree with most of what you said. I was merely bitching in the guise of debate. Really, I feel that the journal must get paid by its readership and not some special interest group or advertiser for the research to have true validity. My main criticism is that I don't understand how so many media outlets have run with the findings based on published conclusion statements and providing no clear analysis of the report/article itself and hence my search for the article. I want to learn how they got to those conclusions. Jules, thanks for dropping in again,

I agree with most of what you said. I was merely bitching in the guise of debate. Really, I feel that the journal must get paid by its readership and not some special interest group or advertiser for the research to have true validity.

My main criticism is that I don’t understand how so many media outlets have run with the findings based on published conclusion statements and providing no clear analysis of the report/article itself and hence my search for the article. I want to learn how they got to those conclusions.

]]> By: Jules http://smashingred.com/blog/miscellanea/the-article-and-my-intellectual-socialist-view/#comment-14 Jules Thu, 19 Jan 2006 20:30:40 +0000 http://smashingred.com/blog/2006/01/19/the-article-and-my-intellectual-socialist-view/#comment-14 In the Web environment in which we both work, we can find much free information about how to code Web pages, how to design Web sites and about usability and information architecture techniques. It does seem strange to us that someone would come up with useful information that is, to a certain degree witheld from us. Although some of the article (I saw it too but haven't read it) is freely available for us to read, other information about his research appears hidden (unless you pay). This is not entirely without precedent: a significant amount of Jakob Nielsen's publications are not available free. I am not quite sure where I sit with this: the journal must be able to survive so paying for the publication, or even the article, doesn't seem unfair. From what you have written, it appears that at least some of the results are available free and if a person is just interested in the results and not the methodology, that may be sufficient. It might be that the results that you and I are most interested in are only part of the results of his study. If we are not interested in the methodology or behavioural psychology behind the results, it may not be of any value to us to purchase the article: other researchers may have a different point of view. I can't agree with any suggestion that tax-supported Canadian universities should provide the publication for free: there are many people outside of Canada who don't pay Canadian taxes yet would have access to these publications. There could be no viable means of ensuring only Canadians accessed this content for free. In the Web environment in which we both work, we can find much free information about how to code Web pages, how to design Web sites and about usability and information architecture techniques. It does seem strange to us that someone would come up with useful information that is, to a certain degree witheld from us. Although some of the article (I saw it too but haven’t read it) is freely available for us to read, other information about his research appears hidden (unless you pay). This is not entirely without precedent: a significant amount of Jakob Nielsen’s publications are not available free.

I am not quite sure where I sit with this: the journal must be able to survive so paying for the publication, or even the article, doesn’t seem unfair. From what you have written, it appears that at least some of the results are available free and if a person is just interested in the results and not the methodology, that may be sufficient. It might be that the results that you and I are most interested in are only part of the results of his study. If we are not interested in the methodology or behavioural psychology behind the results, it may not be of any value to us to purchase the article: other researchers may have a different point of view.

I can’t agree with any suggestion that tax-supported Canadian universities should provide the publication for free: there are many people outside of Canada who don’t pay Canadian taxes yet would have access to these publications. There could be no viable means of ensuring only Canadians accessed this content for free.

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