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> That's not technically true. So your argument is that rejection from peer-review counts as peer-review? > I'm confused about why the author didn't just resu

by nsajko 6y ago

> That's not technically true. So your argument is that rejection from peer-review counts as peer-review? > I'm confused about why the author didn't just resubmit it elsewhere [...] concerns were about presentation rather than substance As far as I understand, the PCG paper is double the size it should be to get accepted by a serious journal. It contains a lot of unnecessary explanations of basic facts, making it unnecessarily tiresome to read for an expert. Presentation matters, because it stands between you and the substance, and you have to be able to get to the substance as fast as possible to review the paper. > [...] (given the attention to PCG at this point, if there were serious criticisms of it it seems a failing on the part of the journal not to address these). Well, the paper was rejected before it could come to that point...

derbOac 6y ago
Presentation does matter, but is the least important part and the most changeable. In this case it is also the part that has nothing to do with the actual performance of PCG. I think she should have resubmitted it, but I think it says volumes about the problems of peer review that PCG is a widely known algorithm, widely discussed, and yet here we are discussing the merits of a particular presentation of it, as perceived by a couple of unknown persons. I'd much rather have this HN discussion focused on open assertions of problems with PCG and rebuttals.
- SeanLuke 6y ago
  > I think she should have resubmitted it, but I think it says volumes about the problems of peer review that PCG is a widely known algorithm, widely discussed PCG is only "widely discussed" because its inventor has personally and very heavily promoted it. We only have the author's side of the story regarding the review. That it wasn't resubmitted for peer review is a huge red flag. The author has also publicly dismissed (what appears to me to be) valid and well-founded criticism of the algorithm, and made some unsubstantiated and one-sided charges about the academic peer review process. This has more than a faint odor of quackery about it, and that's not good about something as fundamentally important as a PRNG.

by nsajko 6y ago

derbOac 6y ago

Presentation does matter, but is the least important part and the most changeable. In this case it is also the part that has nothing to do with the actual performance of PCG. I think she should have resubmitted it, but I think it says volumes about the problems of peer review that PCG is a widely known algorithm, widely discussed, and yet here we are discussing the merits of a particular presentation of it, as perceived by a couple of unknown persons. I'd much rather have this HN discussion focused on open assertions of problems with PCG and rebuttals.

SeanLuke 6y ago
> I think she should have resubmitted it, but I think it says volumes about the problems of peer review that PCG is a widely known algorithm, widely discussed PCG is only "widely discussed" because its inventor has personally and very heavily promoted it. We only have the author's side of the story regarding the review. That it wasn't resubmitted for peer review is a huge red flag. The author has also publicly dismissed (what appears to me to be) valid and well-founded criticism of the algorithm, and made some unsubstantiated and one-sided charges about the academic peer review process. This has more than a faint odor of quackery about it, and that's not good about something as fundamentally important as a PRNG.