4 ms·

As a native English speaker, but not an academic researcher, I would have naively done the same. To preface: I am speaking in ignorance of the mechanisms of c

by dkarl 5y ago

As a native English speaker, but not an academic researcher, I would have naively done the same. To preface: I am speaking in ignorance of the mechanisms of credit and advancement in your field, so I'm undoubtedly overly harsh. I'm not even trying to be fair, because I admittedly don't have the knowledge to do so. I know academia is a different world from private sector industry, but I would think if the point of a confidential review is for you to do anonymous work to improve someone else's credited work, and their work was improved by incorporating your feedback, you would be happy with the outcome, or else why are you participating in a confidential review process in the first place? There are different mechanisms for publishing words that you want credit for. When someone incorporates my feedback on code or documentation word-for-word, I might in the worst case be suspicious that they are trying to get my approval without engaging with my criticism, but in most cases I'm flattered that they respect my idea enough to put their name on it. Although, in my world, putting your name on something is more about responsibility than credit. The command is called "git blame" and not "git credit", after all. Wanting them to incorporate your feedback, but also wanting them to make some change to the wording to avoid plagiarism, smacks of how freshman essays are graded, not how real work gets done. Like I said, I'm not trying to be fair and don't have the right background to be fair to you. I only speak up because I grew up in an academic family and know that there is a presumption that academic work is more idealistic, more altruistic, and less mercenary than private sector work, and I think it's worth pointing out when the reverse is true.

kbenson 5y ago
I almost replied that I had the same view after reading your comment but before opening the article in question. After reading the first but of the article, I think the GP is possibly saying something else, when taken in context, which is that this is exactly the behavior that would be expected from someone that's plagiarizing something else in general using the technique from the article, and all the criticism did was help them get a better plagiarized paper. I can't speak for GP as to whether this was true, or if there are different norms for that sector, or the author was slightly aggressive in asserting their rights, or the assumptions we're making about the content of the criticism are off, but given the article brought a new dimension to it, I thought that worth mentioning.
throwawaygh 5y ago
> I would think if the point of a confidential review is for you to do anonymous work to improve someone else's credited work This is one outcome of peer review, and is an explicit goal of (good) peer reviewers. But it's definitely not the main goal of peer review. The main goal of peer review is assessment. Improvement is something that you can strive for as a secondary outcome, but it's not the main point. This is a significant and important contrast with code review. Peer review is NOT analogous to code review! NB: The code review style of improvement-focused review also happens in academia! But it happens within groups rather than between groups. I.e., advisors or post-docs in single research group or university critiquing one another's work will behave more like a code review. Peer review is different. The same is true in industry, btw. Think of peer review as the thing that happens when a regulator reviews the code from a medical device. They're not interested in making pull requests and doing your work for you. Although they do in principle want you to succeed in your goals, and might provide some feedback along those lines, they're making a yes/no decision. Different function. > their work was improved by incorporating your feedback, you would be happy with the outcome There are really two concerns here: 1. confidentiality, and 2. plagiarism. The first item is probably more important than the second. The typical expectation of reviews is that they are anonymous and private unless stated otherwise (eg openreview). It's incredibly bad form to publish a private correspondence without first asking for permission. Copying a reviewer verbatim without permission is plagiarism, but it's not really something that anyone actually cares about, per se. I've sometimes asked for permission to incorporate components of reviews verbatim into my papers, and never received anything except enthusiastic "of course". I assume the same would be true in the case above. But even in those cases I say something like: "as helpfully observed by an anonymous reviewer of this paper, [insert quote]". The key point is that I don't go around publishing explicitly confidential correspondences without permission. > or else why are you participating in a confidential review process in the first place? Exactly. Confidential. Again, surely you can see how publishing someone's confidential words is quite rude, even if the person wouldn't mind those words being published if simply asked. > Like I said, I'm not trying to be fair and don't have the right background to be fair to you. I only speak up because I grew up in an academic family and know that there is a presumption that academic work is more idealistic, more altruistic, and less mercenary than private sector work, and I think it's worth pointing out when the reverse is true. Academic work is all of those things in terms of goals, not necessarily in terms of process. I don't know anyone who has a passing familiarity with Academia and doesn't realize that it is incredibly competitive. Altruism and competition are different axes.

by dkarl 5y ago

kbenson 5y ago

I almost replied that I had the same view after reading your comment but before opening the article in question. After reading the first but of the article, I think the GP is possibly saying something else, when taken in context, which is that this is exactly the behavior that would be expected from someone that's plagiarizing something else in general using the technique from the article, and all the criticism did was help them get a better plagiarized paper. I can't speak for GP as to whether this was true, or if there are different norms for that sector, or the author was slightly aggressive in asserting their rights, or the assumptions we're making about the content of the criticism are off, but given the article brought a new dimension to it, I thought that worth mentioning.

throwawaygh 5y ago

> I would think if the point of a confidential review is for you to do anonymous work to improve someone else's credited work This is one outcome of peer review, and is an explicit goal of (good) peer reviewers. But it's definitely not the main goal of peer review. The main goal of peer review is assessment. Improvement is something that you can strive for as a secondary outcome, but it's not the main point. This is a significant and important contrast with code review. Peer review is NOT analogous to code review! NB: The code review style of improvement-focused review also happens in academia! But it happens within groups rather than between groups. I.e., advisors or post-docs in single research group or university critiquing one another's work will behave more like a code review. Peer review is different. The same is true in industry, btw. Think of peer review as the thing that happens when a regulator reviews the code from a medical device. They're not interested in making pull requests and doing your work for you. Although they do in principle want you to succeed in your goals, and might provide some feedback along those lines, they're making a yes/no decision. Different function. > their work was improved by incorporating your feedback, you would be happy with the outcome There are really two concerns here: 1. confidentiality, and 2. plagiarism. The first item is probably more important than the second. The typical expectation of reviews is that they are anonymous and private unless stated otherwise (eg openreview). It's incredibly bad form to publish a private correspondence without first asking for permission. Copying a reviewer verbatim without permission is plagiarism, but it's not really something that anyone actually cares about, per se. I've sometimes asked for permission to incorporate components of reviews verbatim into my papers, and never received anything except enthusiastic "of course". I assume the same would be true in the case above. But even in those cases I say something like: "as helpfully observed by an anonymous reviewer of this paper, [insert quote]". The key point is that I don't go around publishing explicitly confidential correspondences without permission. > or else why are you participating in a confidential review process in the first place? Exactly. Confidential. Again, surely you can see how publishing someone's confidential words is quite rude, even if the person wouldn't mind those words being published if simply asked. > Like I said, I'm not trying to be fair and don't have the right background to be fair to you. I only speak up because I grew up in an academic family and know that there is a presumption that academic work is more idealistic, more altruistic, and less mercenary than private sector work, and I think it's worth pointing out when the reverse is true. Academic work is all of those things in terms of goals, not necessarily in terms of process. I don't know anyone who has a passing familiarity with Academia and doesn't realize that it is incredibly competitive. Altruism and competition are different axes.