@sje @Samuelmoore Though I edit the journal, I can't speak for the Australasian Association of Philosophy, which owns it. But nevertheless here are some of my thoughts. I believe in the AJP and the work we publish, so I'd love to be able to present a good case to the AAP about transitioning the journal to some form of OA. (This post got a little long, sorry.)

The revenue that the AAP gets from T&F is public knowledge, because the Association is a regulated charity and so publishes its financial statement. In 2021, the last year for which financials are available, the Association earned roughly $160,000 (AUD) from its contact with T&F.
https://acncpubfilesprodstorage.blob.core.windows.net/public/072200de-38af-e811-a961-000d3ad24182-006751a6-169c-4fad-9d28-a858e73f1e57-Financial%20Report-a6b9088e-1cf8-ec11-82e7-002248944bc7-867271_1-AAP_2021_Signed_Financial_Statements_R.pdf

Beyond doubt you are correct that the Association could do better without T&F taking a share of subscription revenue. The problem is that it is hard to see how to manage the transition without traumatic and existential costs to revenue and assets in the short-medium term.

1. There isn't a culture of publication charges in philosophy, and there have been huge fusses over even moderate submission fees. If we implement either, we'll just lose submissions, and given the need for income, we become a low quality journal. Currently acceptance rate is ~8% and we want to keep our reputation high; going to APCs will trash it in a number of different ways.

1a. Part of the challenge here is that the expectations in the field for what an open access journal should look like have been set by early movers: *Philosophers' Imprint* and then *Ergo*, which are both free to read/free to publish. When *Thought* recently moved to APCs, there was outrage; this was representative: 'Seems like a crazy bad move of Thought. Can’t say I will referee for them or even encourage anyone to submit to Thought. Asking 1500$ to publish a paper is crazy. I expect submissions there to plummet.' (https://dailynous.com/2022/11/30/new-publishing-arrangements-for-thought-a-journal-of-philosophy/)

2. There is no institutional capacity to run our own submissions platform or replicate our referee database. Obviously this can be built but will take time (which I don't have – editor is not a salaried position) and money, the latter of which might be in very short supply if we move to APCs or try to collect an manage subscriptions ourselves. (The society did self-publish the journal until the mid 90s, and moved to a publisher because that subscriptions aspect was so onerous.)

3. The AAP as a charity has a responsibility to manage its assets for the continuation of its charitable mission – opting for the most profitable use of those assets is one of the core fiduciary responsibilities of the directors and so I can understand why the generous T&F offer was accepted. Like you, I think at some stage this money will dry up, but in the short term it would be problematic for the association to refuse it.

Would love to know what to suggest here that isn't just 'AAP should fold' or 'AAP should change its mission', even though they may be the only ultimately financially viable options. Any pointers to other societies struggling with this would be great.

But equally, don't feel you need to respond – this is a bit of venting/thinking aloud for me, and has been beneficial regardless! #OpenAccess #JournalEditing #philosophy

@OverlyHonestEditor I too find the argument for an "honest error" retraction category unhelpful, as it places a sometimes impossible burden on editors to distinguish between accident and fraud. Though editors may be able to discern error vs fraud, and it can be helpful when deciding whether to correct or retract, they shouldn't be expected to publicly make that call every time. A "just the facts" approach to notices is best.
#PublicationEthics #Retractions #Error #ScientificFraud #JournalEditing