hi,
On Thu, Nov 8, 2012 at 11:17 AM, koltzenburg@w4w.net wrote:
hm, sadly enough I must agree that you seem to be raising important real-life points, Dariusz. But am I getting you correctly that you think that major flaws will only be pointed out in a review if the reviewer can officially stay anonymous?
well, not only officially, but also practically. It is an important ethical responsibility of the managing editor to ensure anonymity of the reviewers, so that they can be honest.
in your experience, Dariusz, does this mean reviewers feel fine in placing tons of trust in the editors and their helphands who organize the review not to tell authors who was their most brilliant reviewer?
Yes, that is my experience. In fact, I have never seen the editor revealing the reviewer's identity. I have heard of one such instance, when the author discovered the reviewer's identity simply because of the high praises the reviewer was making for his work, and because of pushing the reviewer's works as suggested needed literature, but the only reaction from the editor was matter-of-factly allowing not to incorporate these suggestions from the review and excluding the reviewer from further process.
and keep in mind that we are not talking about a traditional journal here but about
"a new research journal about Wikis and about research done by using Wikis"
that's true and experimenting with the format is a good idea! I think, for example, that publishing reviews and responses to them, and allowing commenting on them is a good idea. I'm quite convinced though that the anonymity of reviewers helps. Of course, it can be probably be also played with and tested.
best,
dj