Talking freely again
"What?", I hear you say. "You gotta lotta nerves to make us pay AND ask for additional donations." Allow me to elaborate just a bit.
I spent more than 20 years in researching and consolidating the knowledge you find in COPE pages. Much work went into highlighting (often unexpected) cross-connections and into making knowledge navigation easy - I continue to do 8 hour shifts daily, driven by a deep interest in communication biology - which many would probably not believe anyway.
Emails telling me how selfish I am to hide valuable scientific information behind a paywall or even asking me why I would need money in the first place don't upset me anymore. I see them as a sad reflection of a deplorable click-copy-paste-grab entitlement society where more and more people want instant gratification and all for free, taking it for granted that someone else plays Salvation Army and does their homework.
This is why there is a blasted paywall
Personally, I feel that the subscription fees I ask for are truly moderate. Had I received sufficient support from COPE users, the subscription solution would not have been necessary. Hmmm, coming to think of it:
This is what I can do
I'd be willing to make do with the subscription thumbscrew so that everyone can return to "talking freely" in an open-access environment. This is how COPE began decades ago in what altogether seems to be a different life with different values.
This is what I need and why
I'd be happier if I could provide an open-access solution, but not without constant and substantial support. I pointed out on numerous occasions that COPE is not a company but my private bioinformatics initiative, that I operate from a developing world country on a small local income; my working conditions are - er - "certainly different" (more details would immediately be interpreted, I am sure, as "the arrogant foreigner 'talking down the natives'").
This is what YOU can do
To get COPE back for free would require a collective effort of all COPE users or one or two determined philanthropists out there. Even a company committed to communication biology would do (although I doubt their very existence). Activate yourself, please, activate colleagues, or find me that elusive philanthropist - at least, subscribe. And before you begin to wonder, having seen the "Thank you" link on the COPE homepage: right now, two American physicians support me simply because they see the importance and value of COPE - they make my life a bit easier but there’s only so much they can do on their own.
Something great could happen for the good of all
We - that means me and you - can do it. I still refuse to believe that solidarity has no place anymore in the modern world and that 'for the good of all' is an outmoded ridiculous concept smelling of socialism - but maybe I am just unworldly and naive, doing 8-hour shifts deep in databank space with little connection to the "real" world?