Totally agree with "The reviewer should be able to come forward and defend his comments at any time"

Hi!

As far as I know from my personal experience as reviewer:

All reviewers are specifically asked, whether they want to stay anonymous or whether their name is disclosed. I usually opt for the latter.

So, basically its a personal thing of the reviewer.

In general, I think, having the opportunity to stay anonymous is not a bad idea.

However, if you or anybody else does not like this, there are numerous journals available with "open peer review policy" or even a public peer review process (see for for example copernicus).

So, basically, if you personally have a problem with the normal peer review process, choose a different journal :-)

Just my 2cts

Stefan

During a peer review (irrespective of whether the author is known or unknown to the reviewer) an in-depth assessment of ‘the authors version of science’ is expected from the reviewer, in order to know whether the science presented is flawless from a view point of current state of knowledge, and has reached the standard acceptable to the journal. The reviewer is supposed to make constructive comments to improve the paper further, but is not supposed to make comments or suggestions based on any unfounded arguments or personal view points, which are not the current state of knowledge. In order to make this judgment, the reviewer has to be thoroughly conversant and up-to-date on the subject discussed, and has to be sufficiently experienced too. I do not think that an anonymity is necessary for a reviewer to do this.

I have maybe another point of view, although suggested in the first questions. Why not send to reviewers the manuscript WITHOUT the names of the authors !!! The anonymous side of the publish process would be much more balanced, dont' you think ? We all know that the interest of a scientific content of a manuscript may be biased by the a priori judgment of the author's skills... Reviewers might be interested in this exercise of reading/reviewing a manuscript without a priori ideas about the authors....

Dear Kenneth, I agree with you that "it is rather easy to guess who wrote the paper". Of course, the authors have to take care to conceal their identity, without referring to their on work, and I know that it is very difficult. I agree with Laurent that "without a priori ideas about the authors" a reviewer would be able to do a very balanced and unbiased review.

Their names should be open if the review is negative, therewith, the open discussions between the reviewers and the authors are necessary.

Therewith, the causes for the rejection of papers should be strictly defined in the written form.

The positive reviews should be also open.

The work of reviewers should be paid.

Such a practice would favour the development of sciences and the common level of knowledges and would reveal the unskilled and unfair reviewers.

Dear Kenneth,

It is my principal opinion that whatever employ should be paid, because it requires a time and mind or/and physical energy. Our time is our currency, health, delights, education, etc. and, therefore, it should be paid. Any labour on a voluntary basis is our gift to anybody or a result of our motivation theory, and it gives us a satisfaction as a result of flinch to an individuum or community, for example, a help to a neighbour etc. But a review, especially if it is negative one, it is the hard and disagreeable labour which requires much time and gives no satisfaction; and it should be paid. Meanwhile, not only unskilled but also coarse and rude reviewers should be, in my opinion, rejected.

Regards.

DEFINITELY ANONYMOUS AND FREE - otherwise just decline the invitation

Free for sure and not anonymous!!! To send to the reviewers an anonymous manuscript is really a great idea that would avoid many unjust and superficial revisions

Kenneth.....it's definitely true! but depending on the disciplines it could be true only for few papers, and in any case to the reviewer may remain the doubt. What we should avoid is also to write good/uncritical reviews to bad papers by "famous" authors

Absolutely agree!!!!!!!

I agree absolutely with E. Kadyshevich's opinion. The reviews should be open and should be paid. Any labor should be paid; if the labour is not paid no demands can be made to reviewers. None of the judjes works with no salory, though their salary raises the price of the judicial proceedings. The logic of those, who is against this, conflicts with one of the main principles, Why should editors or correctors have salary for their work and reviewers work for free? Factually, such a situation engenders improper and unskilled reviewers, stimulates publishing of moderate papers, and hampers the development of new scientific ideas.

I agree that the review should not be paid as it is part of his work, but one thing is out of tune in my personal opinion is that many magazines that ask you to do many reviews over the course of a year and then ask you to pay to publish a paper! a form of acknowledgment for the work of the reviewer could be to do not ask for money when he submits a paper

Kenneth,

I know your opinion, and you couldn't repeat it again and again. I didn't see your reviews, and I can say about they nothing, but I saw a number of illiterate reviews. Endeed, there are quite a few of devotees of writing reviews for the papers; and it is quite not necessarily that they are the best reviewers. Reviewers represent an important link in the development of the scientific ideas, and it is very desirable to draw intelligent scientists in this process. If you, being editor, say to all your potential reviewers "don't want - OK", I can't support you. Meanwhile, here, it is not the first your allegation of such a kind. I also think that the practice when any one person is the editor of several scientific journals, this is bad practice. I should repeat that there are several principles which should be performed; and among them, there is the principle of the obligatoriness of paiment of any labour (but the disaster aid). Otherwise, the corruption develops, and the quality of the labour falls. It is one of the laws of the capitalist society. Any economist can confirm this. And the high quality of scientific works and the absence of corruption are extremaly important for the scientific community. I write, by no means, about me but about the system.

FYI: Educational journals and related social science journals often have reviews where author is anonymous. Reference to the author's papers just say "author" with no title or journal.

I was just sent anonymous paper of this type by a geology journal. It was quite irksome. (1) I could not tell if the self-cited papers with no info were in the Journal of Total Vanity, meeting abstracts, or real publications. (2) Conversely, I could not spot excessive self-citation and excessive republication of same stuff. (3) Less face it, there are "nuts" that repeatedly submit the same garbage to the same journal with slightly modified title or multiple journals. Their names are proper caveats.

As a matter of practicality, one can figure out well-known authors in many cases as geology has relatively small subfields. The presence of few or no self-citations generally flags a beginning scientist.

I agree that pockets of authors do persist by citing each other and thus becoming "experts." The idea that tidal torque drives plate motions is an extreme example. Papers get published in semi-qualitative journals every year, even though simple conservation of angular momentum shows that the torque is 9 to 10 orders of magnitude too small. It is inconvenient when a journal sends a quality paper out to review by such people, but I do not see how keeping the author anonymous would help any.

Thank you, Kenneth, Elena, Victor, Domenico and Norman for the contributions you made. I just want to express my opinion regarding payment to reviewers.

We are paid a salary by our governments expecting us to do an honest job, and our peers are there watching us to make sure that it really happens that way. As Victor and Elena suggested above a reviewer must be paid, but in my opinion, if and only if the editor feels that the reviewer has done a thorough and thoughtful review that is helpful to the authors. The unskilled reviewers can only be eliminated that way and only skilled reviewers prepared to do an honest job will survive in a journal. Instead, if a payment is guaranteed (as Elena wrote, “whatever employ should be paid”) whatever the quality of the review, that journal may end-up with a bunch of unskilled reviewers. So editors must make sure that, ‘for a job well-done, a payment is guaranteed’ because both the authors and the journal, and science in general will benefit it that way.

OK!

I think that this opinion could favor an increase in the quality of scientific works to a more extent than the opinions of some other working and retired editors. However, according to my viewing the problem, Perera's proposal should be edited. The matter is that each journal editor knows (at least, can know) the scientific level and degree of objectivity of potential reviewers. If he waits to have an expert opinion of a highly-experienced researcher but not an irresponsible bit of paper, the potential reviewer should be notified about the payment. In addition, the subsequent discussion between the reviewer and author should be guaranteed. Such a procedure could increase the responsibility of reviewers and their factual struggle for their reputation, eliminate bad manuscripts, and stimulate new scientific ideas.

I agree with Victor. Indeed, the main aims of scientific journals should be information on the fulfilled works (under the condition of adequate experimental and theoretical techniques and procedures) and supporting of new ideas in sciences. Reviewers should bear responsibility if they reject new ideas which contradict their preconceived opinions but don’t contradict thermodynamics and logic. Groundless rejections of papers should influence their reputation.

I agree with Elena that "main aims of scientific journals should be information on the fulfilled works...and supporting of new ideas in sciences". For this to happen the panel of reviewers in a journal should consist of a cross-section of scientists representing various schools of thought for a given discipline. I do not know who is responsible for formulating the panel of reviewers in a journal. But I am sure that editors must be having a strong handle in that process as some review panels are manned by close colleagues of editors promoting similar lines of thought. A scientific journal is polarized by such review panels as they try to promote research supporting their view points. They tend to believe that their previous work has 'ESTABLISHED' certain scientific facts, and nothing else or no alternatives can exist, not only on this planet but in the whole universe. Though science cannot make forward steps without new ideas, these people believe that science has reached its 'CULMINATION', thus, rather than promoting, they PAUSE promotion of science. Therefore, I totally agree with Elena's earlier comment that, "names (of reviewers) should be open if the review is negative, therewith, the open discussions between the reviewers and the authors are necessary. .....and....the causes for the rejection of papers should be strictly defined in the written form". While introducing the question I wrote, "The reviewer should be able to come forward and defend his comments at any time". Actually, it must be made COMPULSORY for a reviewer to come forward and defend his comments if the person is rejecting a paper.

For me, the name of the reviewer in the Acknowledgements is kind of a quality control for the paper, as the reviewers are also responsible for the good and clean science.

Unfortunately, several unfair practices such as "irrelevant citing", “group promotions” etc. has resulted in emergence of some names as “universal referees”, who feel to be able to comment on any issue, unrelated to their field of experience. This is especially the case in papers on regional geodynamics. Sadly, nothing can be done for papers rejected by such reviewers. However, the reader of a published paper with the open name of the referee, will be able to judge on several points, if she/he is an insider in that topic.

I, therefore, am also supporting the practice of EGU’s open journals, where comments of internal and external reviewers are included for the interested scientific community.

The editors need to do their jobs. Funding agencies (e.g., NSF) maintain lists of off-base and unhelpful reviewers. Journals should do (and often do) the same. There also needs to be chance for authors to reply, except in extreme cases. The reviewer may well agree that the author is correct or that there was misunderstanding that was then fixed. It is appropriate to send paper out to nonspecialist to check readability. If I received paper say on Turkish geodynamics, I would review for readability and general physical accuracy and admit my ignorance on the locality.

(1) Journals like the Nature and Nature Geoscience cover broad scopes. The editors do not have expertise to filter reviewer comments. I recently used rounded number of 500°C and one reviewer made that number into a gross error, as the proper value is 470°C. The editor regarded this as fatal and rejected without chance to reply.

(2) There is another reviewer who says that the proper examples of his publications were not cited, but never reveals the 3 or so proper ones to cite. He has over 100 pubs so the combinations of 3 are astronomically large. Demanding citation can cause feedback. If it is known that A.B.C. Jones-Smith rejects papers that do not cite him, he will get cited a lot and become universal expert.

(3) I had paper a decade ago with both geochemistry and geodynamics. The geochemistry reviewer liked that part but said add more of it and take out the geodynamics. Vice verse for the geodynamics reviewer. The editors had the sense to spot this. Balanced paper got published.

(4) For now, authors can try to avoid journals that unfairly or incompetently review papers from "outsiders." Unfortunately, the outsiders are not likely to have this info until they get rejected. Example: the Journal of Geophysical Research was run out of Lamont at the start of plate tectonics. The compartmentalization of Lamont resulted in fixist bastions. I also had paper on thermal structure of ridge axis with energy-conserving boundary condition rejected as irrelevant because one cannot measure heat flow with piston core through the basalt at the axes. Never mind that the magma (mush) chamber below the surface has something to do with petrology and that the thermal models relate to its geometry. Everyone who got an award for their early plate work at the 1980 Toronto AGU had had their key paper rejected by JGR.

Publication of a paper is a open process. why secrecy is required for the name of Reviewer. If work is good than it will be liked by one and all. However reviewer can suggest to improve the work if necessary.

I see Dr. Saxena's point. Still there are litigious authors who try to bully their paper into publication. Yes, I have been threatened with lawsuits and with charge of academic misconduct. Our legal office vets reviews when necessary. Anonymity gives added layer of protection.

It is also convenient to avoid lengthy exchanges with a "nut" who say thinks that stars are holes in a sky made of light blue cloth.

Dear Prof. Sleep, How did the author threaten you with lawsuits if you were under the cover of anonymity?

I often try to help "amateur" authors. So I give them my name. Most of the time the feedback benefits the author. But I have misjudged an author on occasion. Then the threats start. That is, I am not infallible at spotting "nuts." I keep my anonymity with known and very likely nuts. I cannot keep anonymity as AE.

I agree that there might be unnecessary clashes between the authors and the referees. But it is the task of the Editor to avoid it. On the other hand, this may seem emotional, but it sometimes depends on the way the referee expresses his/her critics. My experience is that there are 40 different ways to do that. Knowledgeable and unbiased referees are not arrogant and harsh. They consider that the “amateurs” may also have original ideas, but are not able to emphasize them simply because of being un-experienced or linguistic limitations. So, it is a good practice to encourage them without being personally involved. Unprejudiced and gentle comments always help!

Hello,

As an update to the conversation, you might be interested in today's editorial by Freddie deBoer, Can Double-Blind Peer Review Be Reformed?

Best wishes,

Barb

http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/08/18/can-double-blind-peer-review-be-reformed/