Beyond Gatekeeping: A Manifesto for Governing Scholarship in the Open Commons

Open access has triumphed in the dissemination of research, making it widely available and discoverable beyond the confines of journal enclosures. The current challenge lies not in access, but in evaluation. While dissemination has evolved, scholarly judgment systems remain ensnared by opaque and anonymous gatekeeping. This study contends that governance, rather than quality, is the core issue. By synthesizing the literature on citations, trust, prestige, and scholarly behavior, we demonstrate that open research is extensively used, cited, and trusted by researchers. Journal branding serves as a residual signal, yet evaluative authority remains confined within closed processes that are misaligned with the ways knowledge is produced, encountered, and assessed. In response, we propose Governance by Guide (GG), a model for evaluating preprint-based scholarly commons. This model replaces gatekeeping with open, attributed guidance; rejection with non-erasure; and final verdicts with public records of critique and response. Evaluation becomes an additive process of stewardship rather than an act of certification. The ultimate evaluative authority rests with the sovereign reader empowered by transparency. We conclude that sustaining a credible open scholarly commons requires abandoning journal-centered certification in favor of transparent, community-governed evaluation. The GG offers a practical framework for achieving this realignment, aligning scholarly authority with openness, accountability, and lived research practice.