4 ms·

It should be explicit. The time required should be protected and remunerated accordingly. It's not. Instead, it's unbounded in terms of time and effort, and he

It should be explicit. The time required should be protected and remunerated accordingly. It's not. Instead, it's unbounded in terms of time and effort, and hence allows unbounded amounts of pressure to be applied. There's a "bullied child" mentality in academia: I went through it, now you have to go through it too. It's ridiculous and unsustainable.

chrisseaton 5y ago
> it's unbounded in terms of time and effort, Contribute back at least as much reviewing as you consume. For example if you submit one paper and get five reviews, contribute back at least five reviews. Or do you think you should get reviews without contributing anything back?
- Robotbeat 5y ago
  Should the journal expect free reviewing if the journal itself isn’t free? Social obligation ought to go both ways.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    You get reviews for free, so you give reviews for free. It does go both ways.
    - austinjp 5y ago
      Nah. Reviews tend to cost thousands of $CURRENCY as part of the publishing costs, while reviewers give their personal time, thereby losing cash and/or time.
    - Robotbeat 5y ago
      The taxpayer pays for most of this stuff. They already paid for all of it by providing the salaries of the researchers and the reviewers. Now the rent-seeking publishers want to charge them all an additional toll.
- austinjp 5y ago
  You raise several straw men. At the most basic level, a junior author will not be invited to be a peer-reviewer until they have published several papers. A proportion of academics leave academia before they are invited to review other papers. This means there process has "debt" built in. It's the academic version of "original sin". Regardless, it's still nonsense even if the original sin is repaid. There is no meaningful way in which the pressure to give free labour is bounded. You insinuate that it's balanced: the amount you withdraw should be equal to the amount you deposit. There are absolutely no forces that promote this or enable it; instead, all forces protect the incumbent power structures. You pose a false dichotomy, using the frankly hackneyed "or did you think...?" followed by some baseless suggestion of my expectations. This final question not only doesn't follow from my previous comment, it's so far off track that it "isn't even wrong". But this is all splitting hairs. The process is bankrupt. I stand by my previous points.
Robotbeat 5y ago
I actually think it’s fine BUT ONLY for open access or free access journals. If you already have enough wage to live, it’s good to do work for free that directly contributes to the public good. But NOT if the output is captured by a toll-extorter that makes a buck primarily just by keeping it from being freely available to the overall public. I’ve decided right now to never do free review for a journal that isn’t also free.

chrisseaton 5y ago

> it's unbounded in terms of time and effort, Contribute back at least as much reviewing as you consume. For example if you submit one paper and get five reviews, contribute back at least five reviews. Or do you think you should get reviews without contributing anything back?

Robotbeat 5y ago
Should the journal expect free reviewing if the journal itself isn’t free? Social obligation ought to go both ways.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  You get reviews for free, so you give reviews for free. It does go both ways.
  - austinjp 5y ago
    Nah. Reviews tend to cost thousands of $CURRENCY as part of the publishing costs, while reviewers give their personal time, thereby losing cash and/or time.
  - Robotbeat 5y ago
    The taxpayer pays for most of this stuff. They already paid for all of it by providing the salaries of the researchers and the reviewers. Now the rent-seeking publishers want to charge them all an additional toll.
austinjp 5y ago
You raise several straw men. At the most basic level, a junior author will not be invited to be a peer-reviewer until they have published several papers. A proportion of academics leave academia before they are invited to review other papers. This means there process has "debt" built in. It's the academic version of "original sin". Regardless, it's still nonsense even if the original sin is repaid. There is no meaningful way in which the pressure to give free labour is bounded. You insinuate that it's balanced: the amount you withdraw should be equal to the amount you deposit. There are absolutely no forces that promote this or enable it; instead, all forces protect the incumbent power structures. You pose a false dichotomy, using the frankly hackneyed "or did you think...?" followed by some baseless suggestion of my expectations. This final question not only doesn't follow from my previous comment, it's so far off track that it "isn't even wrong". But this is all splitting hairs. The process is bankrupt. I stand by my previous points.

Robotbeat 5y ago

I actually think it’s fine BUT ONLY for open access or free access journals. If you already have enough wage to live, it’s good to do work for free that directly contributes to the public good. But NOT if the output is captured by a toll-extorter that makes a buck primarily just by keeping it from being freely available to the overall public. I’ve decided right now to never do free review for a journal that isn’t also free.