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> In this case, the flawed proof/paper was peer reviewed. Making the reviews transparent wouldn't have mattered because in the end the paper was published. Mayb
by ColanR 7y ago
> In this case, the flawed proof/paper was peer reviewed. Making the reviews transparent wouldn't have mattered because in the end the paper was published. Maybe one of the reviewers raised the issues but it was published anyway, so published reviews would tip a reader off?
I don't assume that what you describe would not happen if the reviews were published as commentary; but I do imagine that the public nature of reviews would encourage more careful review, since in that particular case you mention the reviewer and the author(s) together would share the blame for the error.
Additionally, knowing what was reviewed would indicate what was not - and in your example, perhaps there was no careful review of the notation being used. That would be valuable for a critical reader to be aware of. I could read the article, see which parts were critiqued by the reviewers, and if I was skeptical, my critical analysis would build on the reviews instead of reinvent that wheel.
- skat20phys 7y agoI guess as I'm thinking about it and reading through the comments, I'm maybe ok with the reviews being available, although I still believe anonymity is important as an option (although I'm not sure true anonymity can exist with publicly available text, so I go back and forth about that). I'm not convinced review quality will improve with completely open reviews, because there's too many opportunities for retribution. Sure reviews that kill papers through a thousand tiny irrelevant cuts would probably go to the wayside more often, but my guess so to would very trenchant, highly critical reviews that make important but controversial points.
- ColanR 7y agoFair point. Anonymous reviews do seem important from what you're saying. Maybe a combination - anonymous commentary published alongside the papers themselves would be the best of both worlds. As a reader, I know that I would be extremely interested in expert commentary on the journal articles I read.