3 ms·

The open internet. i.e. trolls, brigades, spammers, bots, and all manner of uninformed voices.

bruce511 2y ago
To expand on this - because if the barrier to publishing is zero, then the "reputation" of the publisher is also zero. (Actually, we already have the "open publishing" you are suggesting - it's called Blogging or social media.) In other words, if we have open publishing, then someone like me (with zero understanding of a topic) can publish a very authentic-looking pile of nonsense with exactly the same weight as someone who, you know, has actually done some science and knows what they're talking about. The common "solution" to this is voting - like with StackOverflow answers. But that is clearly trivial to game and would quickly become meaningless. So human review it is - combined with the reputation that a journal brings. The author gains reputation because some reviewers (with reputation) reviewed the paper, and the journal (with reputation) accepted it. Yes, this system is cumbersome, prone to failure, and subject to outside influences. It's not perfect. Just the best we have right now.
- eru 2y ago
  > To expand on this - because if the barrier to publishing is zero, then the "reputation" of the publisher is also zero. That's fine. I don't read eg Astral Codex Ten because I think the reputation of Substack is great. The blog can stand entirely on its own reputation (and the reputation of its author), no need for the publisher to rent out their reputation. See also Gwern.net for a similar example. No need for any voting.
- ricksunny 2y ago
  Reviewers could themselves have reputation levels that weight how visible their review is. This would make brigading more costly. There might still be a pseudoscientific brigade trying to take down (or boost) a particular paper, one that clusters so much that it builds its own competing reputatation, but that's okay. The casual reader can decide which high-vote reviews to follow on their own merits.

To expand on this - because if the barrier to publishing is zero, then the "reputation" of the publisher is also zero. (Actually, we already have the "open publishing" you are suggesting - it's called Blogging or social media.) In other words, if we have open publishing, then someone like me (with zero understanding of a topic) can publish a very authentic-looking pile of nonsense with exactly the same weight as someone who, you know, has actually done some science and knows what they're talking about. The common "solution" to this is voting - like with StackOverflow answers. But that is clearly trivial to game and would quickly become meaningless. So human review it is - combined with the reputation that a journal brings. The author gains reputation because some reviewers (with reputation) reviewed the paper, and the journal (with reputation) accepted it. Yes, this system is cumbersome, prone to failure, and subject to outside influences. It's not perfect. Just the best we have right now.

eru 2y ago
> To expand on this - because if the barrier to publishing is zero, then the "reputation" of the publisher is also zero. That's fine. I don't read eg Astral Codex Ten because I think the reputation of Substack is great. The blog can stand entirely on its own reputation (and the reputation of its author), no need for the publisher to rent out their reputation. See also Gwern.net for a similar example. No need for any voting.
ricksunny 2y ago
Reviewers could themselves have reputation levels that weight how visible their review is. This would make brigading more costly. There might still be a pseudoscientific brigade trying to take down (or boost) a particular paper, one that clusters so much that it builds its own competing reputatation, but that's okay. The casual reader can decide which high-vote reviews to follow on their own merits.