ABSTRACT
Information that is gathered collectively, over time, with minimal consultation and organization but with equal zeal and care by people who have never met each other, may make up large and important databases. Here we will encounter what may be the fundamental conflict of interest in scholarly publishing: that between the freedom to speak one’s mind and the responsibility to produce information that is assuredly valid and reusable by others. Freedom of inquiry and speech demands a world in which we give power to people who are editors when we like them and censors when we do not. However that tension works itself out, an important but flawed or preliminary treatment of some vital subject, by the time it has been worked over, discussed, revised, enhanced, and reworked by as many hands as care to turn to the job will become the ultimate postmodern authorless creation.
