I’m doing the 2016 DOAJ scan by publisher name–a publisher will frequently use the same APC placement and issue organization for all its journals, saving me time–and just reached Bentham Open, with about 70 journals (quite a few ceased).
And could reach NONE of the first 10…either DNS errors or timeouts. All with URLs starting either www.bentham.org/open/ or bentham.org/open
Just for fun, searched for Bentham Open…and got a site at benthamopen.com
So far, of the first 10 tried, the five that had already ceased have simply disappeared, while the other five can now be reached from the parent site at benthamopen.com
In no case do I see a stub site or autoforward–neither for the publisher (or “publisher”) as a whole nor for any of the journals.
At this point, I’ll do the 60 others by using the new parent site–but isn’t one mark of an even semi-reputable publisher that when you change URLs you don’t simply shut down the old site?
Or is “semi-reputable publisher” too kind a word in this case?
Added March 31, 2017:
It has been suggested that these issues were caused by an act of sabotage–a disgruntled ex-employee deleting information on their way out the door. I have no way of knowing whether this is true; if so, it would move the blame from Bentham itself to a lower level (and suggest inadequate backup/restore/security practices). [H/t to Richard Poynder for passing along the rumor.]
In any case, most Bentham journals are still in DOAJ and included in the forthcoming 2011-2016 study, found at new addresses.
