QUOTE(RayG @ Nov 11 2006, 01:02 PM)
You're making it sound like anyone, qualified or not, is going to have an impact on whether an article is accepted or rejected. I've read that paragraph a few times now and I still don't see where they're saying that, or that they've abandoned the peer-review process.
:surrender: I meant to post a concession on this matter a day before your post, to save you writing a rebuttal, but I didn't get around to it. (I even anticipated your observation that greater participation in peer review might actually make the process MORE stringent.) I was wrong in what I said--that a loosening of the peer review process had occurred.
What I should have said was that:
1. Some loosening of the peer review process, in the sense of making it more transparent (reviewers' comments viable by the public) and more participatory (public peer review-ish comments enabled prior to publication), has already occurred on a trial basis, and may become permanent, depending on the outcome of
Nature's trial.
2. Some lessening of the implicit power of editors and peer reviewers to keep rejected papers invisible to other scientists has occurred on a trial basis, because submitted papers are now viewable online, and may also become permanent, depending on the trial's outcome.
3. SasSkeptic's comment implied, or seemed to imply, that NO change had occurred, or would occur (i.e., was being contemplated), beyond posting back issues online. As to the first, he was wrong, if
Nature's trial can be considered a change. (Arguable, since it's tentative.) As to the second, it would be a change if the loosening and lessening I mentioned above occurred, even though this wouldn't impact the core of peer review.
I think it's hard to be sure how far the online-ization of journal publishing would go. What SasSkeptic's eight journals are doing may be as step onto a slippery slope. I.e., they may move, five years from now, in the direction
Nature is going and:
A. Vastly expand their "letters" section.
B. Post articles-submitted-for-publication.
C. Allow their subscribers to comment on such submitted articles.
D. In time, this commentary might become somehow "given a voice," even if only informally, in deciding what to publish and what changes authors should be asked to make.
This wouldn't lead to the "publication" of more Bigfoot papers, although it might if a lot of favorable comments were received on submitted inconclusive Bigfoot papers and the editors thus lost their fear of a strong negative reader reaction. The main thing is that speculative, far-out science would at last have "a place at the table," even though below the salt. That's good enough for me.