Contextualisation
Reviewing is an important academic mission that provides a form of filter for the quality of published knowledge. For the moment, it is not valued in academics, it is done on voluntary basis, and is not retributed.
Problem
Academics often have to refuse reviewing for lack of time. For the moment, we select manuscripts to review based on our interest for the topic. However, public access to knowledge is also important. As reviewers, we might therefore want to optimise our time and make knowledge as accessible to all as possible.
Question
What are your views on having editors and publishers make it possible to only opt-in for manuscripts that, if accepted, will be made publicly available ?
I am sorry, I do not fully understand your question. Do you suggest that reviewers should not evaluate articles that do not opt for open publication (even considering the sometimes astronomical fees publishers charge for that)? Or are you asking if we should aim to eliminate charges in publications all together and have only publicly available journals?
Many of us, particularly who have been or are being the editor, know how is difficult the work of a referee and how much time is needed to evaluate the papers.
Nevertheless I think for a referee is very interesting to read and evaluate the latest work in his own specific research area.
I have been an Associate Editor for an Elsevier journal for a long time and I think their policy to motivate the referees was very interesting because for every review, Elsevier provided a month of a free access to ScienceDirect (www.sciencedirect.com) which hosts over 3,800 journals and more.
Here an excellent reading on the problems related to the peer review
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1420798/
Some comments of the reviewers are very valuable for improving the quality of the manuscript. However some of them would mis-lead the readers.It would increase the cost of the publication process and make the paper become longer and longer if we adhere the comments to the published paper, which limit more people to access it due to the expensive charging .In fact, the authors generally will write reponse letter to the reviewers, this communication is a very good experience for both sides. Anyway，publon is a very good platform for reviewer recognition.
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