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This line of thinking is dangerous and ignores very real problems as the other comments point out. Instead of targeting peer-review, i recommend approaching th

This line of thinking is dangerous and ignores very real problems as the other comments point out. Instead of targeting peer-review, i recommend approaching this problem as one of incentives. Under the current system, what is the incentive for a reviewer to read and critique a paper? None. If they were paid in cash, there is a clear incentive. The publishers do not want this overheard and the associated legal requirements so they seek out "volunteers" and "compensate" them with rubbish like book copies and "reputation". The fault is with publishers, not the peer-review process. At the moment, the current model allows parasites like Elsevier to derive the maximum benefit while not paying most folks involved in creating the actual value - the reviewers, editors and authors. Citizen journalism tried this, failed and is now hollowing out established journalism. We need proper funding and proper incentives for journalism just as we need proper incentives for academic research.

jltsiren 3y ago
The incentives of paid peer review would not be easy to get right. Especially if you want the compensation to be high enough that it would actually be an incentive to the reviewer. Many universities limit the number of hours their faculty can commit to paid external activities. Paid peer review would be one of those activities, and it would have to compete against other activities. Such as consulting, which can be very lucrative in some fields. So maybe you have to pay $10k peer review fee when you submit a paper. And then it gets rejected after the first round of reviews, because you aimed too high or the editor and the reviewers just didn't like the topic. You resubmit to another journal and pay another $10k. After a couple of additional rounds of reviews ($5k each), the journal seems to be interested in publishing the paper. But reviewer 2 wants you to cite some of their papers that are not really that relevant. Do you agree, or do you argue against and risk another round of reviews (another $5k)? Or maybe you get the feeling that reviewer 3 is stalling the process with superficial requirements, as they get easy money from the reviews. Except that most academics can't afford that. American academics are massively overpaid by global standards, and peer review would naturally be outsourced to developing countries, where the expectations of pay are more reasonable. Many of the academics there are reputable, after all. Unfortunately the institutional culture is often more problematic, and corruption also tends to be more prevalent. Do we really want to let those institutions shape the practices of science worldwide? One of the unfortunate features of capitalism is that being a middleman is more profitable than doing the actual work. Instead of a system where you pay $x for reviews, we could end up with one where you pay $1.1x to a middleman, who then pays $0.8x for the reviews. The middlemen get even richer than in the current system, because there is more money in publishing than there used to be.
- eldaisfish 3y ago
  This makes a good point but is largely a strawman. Review fees do not need to be this high. At $ 25 an hour, most engineering papers take about 2-5 hours to review. That’s $ 125 per reviewer or $ 500 for three reviewers, one editor and another $ 500 for publication fees. That’s $ 1,000 in total and the number of reviewers can be fewer. At the moment, greed drives open access publication fees. Journals charge thousands of dollars because they can. There is no logical justification of the cost. There are several journals that charge hundreds of euros for review although they do not pay reviewers. Note also that not all review needs to be done by academics. folks in industry can contribute equally but their employer pays for their time so that boils down to altruism or business priorities. A reasonable payment for time creates an incentive for the world beyond academia and this is a net positive. The payment does not need to be prohibitive, just enough that the reviewer has an incentive to do a good job and isn’t pressured to rush. The problem thus is not limited to the journals or the peer review process but inventives.
  - jltsiren 3y ago
    I was thinking more about something like $200 to $500/hour. A small payment like $200 can be more of a disincentive than an incentive. You have to deal with bureaucracy to get paid and more bureaucracy to pay taxes for it. And if the money comes from a foreign source, amount of the compliance bureaucracy can be absurd. Getting paid is simply not worth it, if the payment is too small.

jltsiren 3y ago

The incentives of paid peer review would not be easy to get right. Especially if you want the compensation to be high enough that it would actually be an incentive to the reviewer. Many universities limit the number of hours their faculty can commit to paid external activities. Paid peer review would be one of those activities, and it would have to compete against other activities. Such as consulting, which can be very lucrative in some fields. So maybe you have to pay $10k peer review fee when you submit a paper. And then it gets rejected after the first round of reviews, because you aimed too high or the editor and the reviewers just didn't like the topic. You resubmit to another journal and pay another $10k. After a couple of additional rounds of reviews ($5k each), the journal seems to be interested in publishing the paper. But reviewer 2 wants you to cite some of their papers that are not really that relevant. Do you agree, or do you argue against and risk another round of reviews (another $5k)? Or maybe you get the feeling that reviewer 3 is stalling the process with superficial requirements, as they get easy money from the reviews. Except that most academics can't afford that. American academics are massively overpaid by global standards, and peer review would naturally be outsourced to developing countries, where the expectations of pay are more reasonable. Many of the academics there are reputable, after all. Unfortunately the institutional culture is often more problematic, and corruption also tends to be more prevalent. Do we really want to let those institutions shape the practices of science worldwide? One of the unfortunate features of capitalism is that being a middleman is more profitable than doing the actual work. Instead of a system where you pay $x for reviews, we could end up with one where you pay $1.1x to a middleman, who then pays $0.8x for the reviews. The middlemen get even richer than in the current system, because there is more money in publishing than there used to be.

eldaisfish 3y ago
This makes a good point but is largely a strawman. Review fees do not need to be this high. At $ 25 an hour, most engineering papers take about 2-5 hours to review. That’s $ 125 per reviewer or $ 500 for three reviewers, one editor and another $ 500 for publication fees. That’s $ 1,000 in total and the number of reviewers can be fewer. At the moment, greed drives open access publication fees. Journals charge thousands of dollars because they can. There is no logical justification of the cost. There are several journals that charge hundreds of euros for review although they do not pay reviewers. Note also that not all review needs to be done by academics. folks in industry can contribute equally but their employer pays for their time so that boils down to altruism or business priorities. A reasonable payment for time creates an incentive for the world beyond academia and this is a net positive. The payment does not need to be prohibitive, just enough that the reviewer has an incentive to do a good job and isn’t pressured to rush. The problem thus is not limited to the journals or the peer review process but inventives.
- jltsiren 3y ago
  I was thinking more about something like $200 to $500/hour. A small payment like $200 can be more of a disincentive than an incentive. You have to deal with bureaucracy to get paid and more bureaucracy to pay taxes for it. And if the money comes from a foreign source, amount of the compliance bureaucracy can be absurd. Getting paid is simply not worth it, if the payment is too small.