Hi all

OK, will stop too but one last reaction to the point made by Dariusz below:

...

Once the publication process is launched then yes, normally everything (initial sub, reviews, responses, final paper) is published.

I think one good thing about the standard review process is that authors are motivated to strive for excellence, since they do not know if their revised submission is finally going to be accepted. From this point of view, it is good not to give a promise of publication on the early stage.

...

From the point of view of ISI politics, it is also important to have a

comparable statistics of rejection rates.

In any case, I think that supporting JPP would be a great solution, especially if JPP was willing to consider some adjustments in publication policy (or at least open it for a discussion). It is much easier to partner with an existing journal than start form the scratch (and also, JPP seems to be very well targeted to our model solution here, and seems also to reach a little outside just the wiki world, which is a good thing, too).

Its not clear to me that the threat of not being published is more of an incentive than having your paper published with bad "signals" (ratings given by reviewers to the final paper) or indeed of publishing a not-great paper. One of the ideas guiding JoPP was precisely this - to quote the process page again

"Our approach to peer reviewing is informed by Whitworth and Friedman’s [2009a] criticism of current academic publishing as a form of competitive economics in which “scarcity reflects demand, so high journal rejection rates become quality indicators”. This self-reinforcing system where journals that reject more attract more results in a situation where “avoiding faults becomes more important than new ideas. Wrongly accepting a paper with a fault gives reputation consequences, while wrongly rejecting a useful paper leaves no evidence”.

Whitworth and Friedman [2009b] propose an alternative evaluation system: 1. higher rating discrimination: a many-point scale, not just accept-reject 2. more submissions to be rated: rate all 3. more people to rate: community involvement 4. different ways of rating: formal review vs. informal use ratings."

(The papers referenced are well worth reading for anyone interested in the dynamics of scientific publishing:) Whitworth B and R Friedman (2009a) “Reinventing academic publishing online. Part I: Rigor, relevance and practice”, First Monday, Volume 14, Number 8 – 3 August 2009. Whitworth B and R Friedman (2009b) “Reinventing academic publishing online. Part II: A socio-technical vision”, First Monday, Volume 14, Number 9 – 7 September 2009.

That being said, there are voices within the JoPP editorial board who have been arguing for stricter quality controls as well, hence the introduction of editorial triage at the beginning of the process.

cheers

Mathieu