White House petition to bring down paywalls on taxpayer-funded research | Hacker News Reader

White House petition to bring down paywalls on taxpayer-funded research

wwws.whitehouse.gov

154 pointsRichardPrice15 comments

Why waste time with this kind of thing? Is there any evidence that any congressional office or other significant legislative influence checks the "White House petition site" and uses it as a serious barometer of public interest? It just seems like a distraction, a waste of energy. Why not call your Congressperson instead? Why not start a rally that will be picked up by the local news station? Why not get everyone you know to call your Congressperson on the matter? These things all seem much more effective than promoting a petition on whitehouse.gov.

This is part of a social media strategy. This petition will spread thru Facebook and Twitter.

It worked against SOPA.

I would say that what work against SOPA was big names like Google and Wikipedia weighing in on the matter.

If the internet population wasn't behind it, I don't think Google or Wikipedia would matter much.

The noise generated on Twitter and Facebook made politicians take a closer look on SOPA and companies voice their opposition to it.

I don't think that Google and Wikipedia used the number of signatures on the petition on whitehouse.gov as a major component in their decisions to come out against SOPA.

My understanding is that the White House really cares about petitions with backing from tens of thousands of people.

I have talked to many policy makers in D.C., and science funding agencies, and they need to know that the public wants access to taxpayer-funded research, if they are going to push that kind of legislation through Congress. They believe that this petition could provide the ooomph for the US government to start pushing for increased public access to taxpayer-funded research.

Clearly we all are familiar with WH petitions that don't fare well. This one I think has the hallmarks of something different--and something the president could probably actively support. Regardless, the time required here is minimal. In fact, in the time it took you to write your pessimistic note, you could have voted to support the petition instead, and done one or two other things as well.

Why not?

This "kind of thing" is precisely what innovators in an office like the White House need to win over their bosses, their colleagues, liaisons at a dozen federal agencies, and leagues of other dispassionate technocrats.

Log in, show a little support, and strengthen the arguments of those internal advocates, because we're damn well better off with their help and attention than with them feeling spurned and believing this is an unimportant issue.

There's a clear chicken and egg situation here. If we never use it, they'll never read it. If we do use it and they don't read it then we can bash them over the head with that fact until they do start reading it

Seems like this should be the default; that publicly funded research is free for the public.

whitehouse.gov petitions have proven to be an absolutely useless way to effect change or even to raise awareness of issues. In the best case scenario a "successful" petition is met with nothing more than a form letter.

If you want to stand up and be heard contact your senators and your congressional reps and send a separate letter to the whitehouse as well. Don't waste your time with these useless virtual petitions.

I would go further: Any intellectual property funded with taxpayer money should be put in the public domain.

Is this important when stuff like the items below is going on:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mhastings/congressmen-seek-to-lift-p...

and

http://www.salon.com/2012/05/16/obamas_new_free_speech_threa...

Why yes, it is. Very much so.

why? Should we all just accept your pronouncement as truth?

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