OK, I know I am supposed to be supportive of Open Access journals, just because a journal is OA does not mean it is OK. Take "The Open Evolution Journal." being published by Bentham.
On paper, this could be a useful contribution to the list of OA journals. They have some good people on their Editorial Board and I am glad to see such a big list of people in Evolution seemingly supporting OA publishing.
And Bentham is certainly doing the OA talk and pushing OA as a major option for their publications. In fact, they might be pushing OA a bit too much. For example, in their letter to me they say
All published open access articles will receive massive international exposure and as is usually the case for open access publications, articles will also receive high citations.Hmm. A bit over the top no? I love OA mind you. But OA in and of itself does not guarantee citations and exposure.
But this is a minor quibble. My real issue with them is the SPAM. I keep getting frigging emails from Bentham for all sorts of journals. And some of the emails I get are for accounts that I cannot easily send email from to use their lame unsubscribe option. I assume others out there get these emails from Bentham too, as I have gotten them from like 20 of their journals so far. And many are in areas that I have no expertise in (I just got one for a Geology journal).
Just goes to show - OA sometimes means "Objectively Annoying."
