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If I saved some money, I'd rather stash it in a trustworthy institution like Bank of America (bear with me for a moment) than search for someone to lend it to o
by KKKKkkkk1 11y ago
If I saved some money, I'd rather stash it in a trustworthy institution like Bank of America (bear with me for a moment) than search for someone to lend it to on my own. Similarly, if I wrote a research article, I will submit my article to Nature or Science, who will find an esteemed scientist to referee my paper and give it their stamp of approval. I could try to find such a scientist directly and ask them to write an endorsement letter for my research, but Nature or Science are much more likely to be successful at this due to their stellar reputation.
- soyiuz 11y agoYes, that is true. But the filtration mechanism you are describing happens through the work of editors and peer reviewers who also get close to nothing. The value is extracted by content aggregators who don't contribute anything except aggregation, which is already provided by search engines etc...
- alphydan 11y agoWhen you are at the cutting edge of your field (able to publish in Nature or Science), you know exactly who the peer reviewers are (there is usually only 5 to 10 teams in the world who are experts in your area). So you know it's one of 20 to 60 people (roughly). That part is actually very easy. The job the journal does is to randomly and anonymously assign the reviewer (sometimes not entirely randomly, giving it to your critics). But all that could be automated (taking into account top publishers in the field, newcomers to the field, conference publications, etc).