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Reading language
The screen, the questions and the judgments read in English where an English reading has been made. The Korean originals are unchanged, and evidence stays in the language it was written in.

Remove the barrier to reading, and does the barrier to writing rise?

2002The past, rebuiltDeadline · Within 45 days until the next volume's publication contract

Reconstruction of the past

The material's reference date is 2002-02-15. Only explicitly cited source texts from that era are used as background; the three situational premises and the subsequent turns are invented. Real outcomes, amended systems, and success cases known later are not used as facts of the initial input. This is a modern retrospective framing of the question and is not a claim that people of that era made this decision.

The question to decide

Making papers free to read still leaves editing, production, and preservation costs. Charging authors makes submission hard for those without research funding, and covering costs with membership fees raises the burden on members. Considering the conditions of institutional support and editorial independence, to whom should the society entrust publication costs?

Who decidesFictional small learned society publishing committee

What the AI judgments chose

Reading the judgment record…

AI-generated editorial illustration for the Meridian library.

The options

The order shown is not a ranking of preference.

  1. Option 1

    Authors bear the publication cost

    Links publication and funding, but raises the barrier to participation for authors without research grants.

  2. Option 2

    Cover it jointly through membership fees

    Reduces the direct costs for authors and readers, but increases the burden of continued participation for society members.

  3. Option 3

    Receive joint institutional support

    Spreads the costs broadly, but takes on the responsibility for sponsorship conditions, termination, and editorial independence.

The situation as it stands

The fictional journal wants to remove the access cost for readers, but the cost of editing, production, and preservation labor remains. Decision deadline: within 45 days, before the contract for the next volume.

A reconstruction of the past as of 2002-02-15 · Charging authors so that a journal is free to its readers. A fictional case newly built from the principles of documents of that era. The institutions, people, figures, and events that appear are not records of real decision-making.

  1. Premise 1The fictional journal wants to remove the access cost for readers, but the cost of editing, production, and preservation labor remains.
  2. Premise 2Authors without research grants also submit, and raising membership fees can make it hard for a small society to survive and keep members.
  3. Premise 3Institutional sponsorship can be a large source of funding, but it requires handling the end of support and demands about the direction of publication.

Where it holdsPublication costs, submission access, member support, and editorial independence

What is still unknown

  1. Unknown 1The share of authors submitting without research grants
  2. Unknown 2The effect of a membership fee increase on member retention
  3. Unknown 3An actual agreement separating the sponsor from editorial judgment

Signals to decide again

  • Decide what observation, responsible person, and confirmation window can establish 「the share of authors submitting without research grants」, and reconsider if new confirmation changes the trade-offs of the options.
  • Decide what observation, responsible person, and confirmation window can establish 「the effect of a membership fee increase on member retention」, and reconsider if new confirmation changes the trade-offs of the options.
  • Decide what observation, responsible person, and confirmation window can establish 「an actual agreement separating the sponsor from editorial judgment」, and reconsider if new confirmation changes the trade-offs of the options.
Where the paths partNot answers — paths that part from the same starting point
Independent branch 1 · synthetic event

A sponsoring institution set a condition asking that papers in its supported field be given priority in review.

Independent branch 2 · synthetic event

In the process of waiving the author burden, a problem arose in which researchers' circumstances had to be disclosed.

Material and rootsThe frame, the values and the background documents
symbolic and interpretive frame · Icarus

Does the expectation of achievement change how limits are observed?

An exploratory perspective chosen by the creator. Does not claim supernatural validity or the superiority of any particular option.
Values and norms

The benefits and costs of the options accrue to different stakeholders. Which loss to accept remains undecided.

A subject for the decision-maker to argue over; the materials carry no conclusion of their own.
The record of this question
Question
FSP-SCIENCE-25 · version 1.5.0
Content identity, SHA-256
c66a826409495798129a162fbea7f672b0d722a9d7fefbd1262f56a6fdb5496b
Input files
Question input JSON · What followed, JSON
See it in the record list
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