Dear Ronald, to me it seems there are two separate arguments in your response. First, the presumed decline in the quality of academic publications and, second, the value of Academia Letters.

A thorough take on the former is beyond the scope of this response so let me just say that while there are certainly lots of bad academic work around, in my field (information systems) the quality of publishing processes has improved in my experience over the years. By choosing carefully to which journals and conferences to submit your papers, you often get very useful feedback on your work. Obviously, the situation may vary between different fields.

As to your second point, I disagree for the following reasons: Academia Letters is opaque and not run by academics – learning to publish in it does not prepare you to get your papers out where it matters for your discipline. My suggestion to fledgling academics is to get feedback from colleagues, conferences, and workshops in your field that prepare you for your own discipline. Getting your paper out in Academia Letters has very little to do with academic knowledge and publishing – indeed, I argue that the whole publication may in the worst case contribute to lowering the standards of academic publishing.