[Corpora-List] reviewers are us

[John F. Sowa]

On 10/2/2011 3:03 PM, Stan Szpakowicz wrote:
> I am a realist, for what it is worth. We are not bad, but we are harried
> and rushed, and yes, some of us may occasionally not be quite upright.
> After all, the publishing racket (-:) is a field of competition, so
> someone might be tempted to "disprefer" a paper on collision course with
> theirs.

That is a realistic point that should be considered.

A colleague of mine had a paper rejected by a "big name" who was biased
against the paradigm and made mistakes in the review that showed s/he
had not taken the time to study it carefully.  Despite other favorable
reviews it was rejected on the basis of the "big name" opinion.  (The
name of the reviewer was not disclosed, but the editor explicitly said
that the reviewer had a "big name".)

That is a point in favor of disclosing the actual names of reviewers.

On the other hand, there are often good reasons for not disclosing the
names of reviewers: some people might be reluctant to state negative
opinions candidly for fear that the author(s) of an article might
later retaliate in their reviews.

A compromise is to give reviewers the option of disclosing their names.

John





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