[HN Gopher] Real peer review has never been tried ___________________________________________________________________ Real peer review has never been tried Author : bilsbie Score : 62 points Date : 2022-07-21 16:58 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.worksinprogress.co) (TXT) w3m dump (www.worksinprogress.co) | Blahah wrote: | This article seems like it would be very interesting to me but | after dismissing three intrusive popups in my mobile browser I | stopped trying to read it. | | Does anyone know of a mobile browser friendly way to read this | kind of site without being constantly bombarded? It's exhausting. | It seems like the sort of problem that would have been solved, | but my attempts to discover the solution have failed. | tommy5dollar wrote: | There's just a cookie prompt and then a newsletter sign-up a | little later? I don't think there's any constant bombardment, | if there is for you I'm interested to know more. | Blahah wrote: | I dismissed 3 overlays. | | 1. cookies 2. email newsletter 3. cookies again | | The constant bombardment was more in reference to the state | of the web generally. Popups and overlays that aren't a | result of an interaction I've chosen to make are exhausting | for me (and people with ADHD generally, and many others). I | don't go back to sites that have them, but would be happy to | read (and often pay for) the content if that wasn't the | context. | SCNP wrote: | The 'Kill Sticky' plugin for Firefox works pretty well for me | for most stuff. Most popups darken the screen, though, and it | doesn't handle that. It's very useful to me nonetheless. If you | don't use Firefox, you can go their site and copy/paste it to | your bookmarks. | roninghost wrote: | On android: fennec(firefox fork) + uBlockOrogin, NoScript, | PrivacyBadger and Decentraleyes. | | I only had de reject all cookies prompt. | | With firefox you can aldo use the reade mode, that extracts the | main taxt and displays it plainly. | Barrera wrote: | I was expecting the author to define "real peer review," but | didn't see that. The best approximation is probably gleaned from | the conclusion: | | - integration of preprint servers and alt metrics | | - tweaking incentives to review | | - making comments on papers public | | - use of software to detect fraud | | - directing resources specifically to improving peer review | | The bigger problem is that the author doesn't seem to actually | zero in on the problem peer review is supposed to solve today. | The author notes that peer review really got going in the 1970s | as a way to filter content flowing to overwhelmed editors. But | the emergence of the internet largely nullifies that problem. | Wide distribution of scientific information no longer requires | scientific publishers. | | The real problem is the ways in which science funding, journals, | and peer review have become intertwined, with publishers playing | the role of bankers in this economy. This problem is cultural, | not technical. It's a historical relic and it increasingly does | not serve science well. | | So, what is the actual problem that journal-supervised peer | review is supposed to solve in the age of the internet? | Pulcinella wrote: | I would not even say those things would count as "real peer | review." Peer review is supposed to involve replication. | Unfortunately that almost never happens these days. | bryanrasmussen wrote: | >Wide distribution of scientific information no longer requires | scientific publishers. | | Wide and voluminous distribution of bad information requires | filters to extract the good, peer review has some form of | filtering functionality, although I wouldn't say it is great I | think it would probably be better than the filter that a | Facebook or Twitter of Science would provide (or just Facebook | or Twitter if you don't like the 'of science' locution) | pessimizer wrote: | > It's a historical relic and it increasingly does not serve | science well. | | It's also pretty devastating evidence that the world is not | going to improve in any sort of an organized way if the experts | that we would expect to lead the effort for a rational world | can't clean their own house. It's hard to trust academic | systems to design ways to improve society when the academic | system is built around an irrational base in journals. | | An academic system that exhibits the same shitty array of | characteristics as every other corrupt status quo institution | doesn't give me a lot of hope for everything else. | moffkalast wrote: | I don't think anyone expects academics to fix anything, | that's what we have politicians for, hah! | lacker wrote: | Nowadays, journals and peer review solve the problem of, people | need to make hiring decisions and funding decisions. But these | decisionmakers don't have enough technical expertise or time to | evaluate all the papers from all the applicants. | | The decisionmakers do have enough time to learn which are the | most prestigious journals in the field. So, they can pick the | people with the most papers submitted to prestigious journals, | or at least use that to filter applicants down to a short list | for closer examination. | lacker wrote: | The problem is that looking at journal quality is the best quick | way to evaluate how good a paper is, when you aren't an expert on | the topic. And a lot of employment and funding decisions are made | by people who aren't experts. | | Nowadays a journal provides essentially no distribution, but | there's no good alternative to journals as a "stamp of quality". | elashri wrote: | > And a lot of employment and funding decisions are made by | people who aren't experts. | | This should be considered a flaw (bug in tech terms) not a | feature. why would you take decisions about funding something | or not if you are not an expert. At least you are not expert in | the same field but have knowledge and it is easier for you to | communicate and discuss the proposals. But getting someone who | never did a real scientific research and the last time he wrote | a scientific essay was when he was in college to determine | which research should be funded is wrong. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-07-21 23:01 UTC)