Re: [tlug] Journals, Authors and 'Free Peer Review'

[Benjamin Kowarsch <trijezdci@example.com>]

One more thing ...

And whether we like it or not, uploads to ArXiv can be
reported on a CV, but would have to fall under the
"Unpublished" category.  I didn't say anything about
"hiding" it -- but we do have to call it what it is...and it
would be considered "Unpublished" or "Not peer-reviewed" by
many.

I didn't say it would, but you were comparing it to a blog. My point was

that it is closer to a published work than it is to a blog.

If you take a look at articles on ArXiv you can often see there are several

versions as the authors are getting feedback and edit their work over time.

This is a form of peer review. If you see there are revisions you can be fairly

sure that this revision was initiated by some peer feedback.

This is something a peer reviewed journal can never do. Once the article is

in the journal, that's it. On ArXiv, many of the articles I have researched had

revisions and often theses revisions took new developments into account

that weren't known or available when the article was first uploaded.

Generally, the mechanisms for quality assurance are all there. Just as is the

case with open source software published on public repos like Github, there

are examples where these instruments are used to their full potential and the

quality is high, and there are those where it is just "dump and abandon". Just

because somebody else uses Github in a dump and abandon manner doesn't

mean you shouldn't be using it properly, making use of all the tools available

to turn out an publish quality material, attend to it from time to time to improve

it etc etc. The same applies to ArXiv.org. And just like people can very quickly

figure out whether a Github repo contains quality or trash, so can scholars

quickly figure out whether an article on ArXiv.org is quality or trash.

What I would like to see on ArXiv.org would be some sort of issue and

feedback tracker, like we have on Github, where people can post issues/

comments, you then address those by editing your article and post a new

revision.

This would make the site even more useful because instead of emailing a

link to folks from whom you ask feedback and then doing it all by email

they could just do it right on the issue/feedback tracker where it won't

get lost in the ever growing mailbox and where it can be seen by others.

But this is likely going to happen at some point and such tools are

likely going to fill in the peer review, the boundaries will then be blurred.

In fact, I would trust an article far more if I can see the history of feedback

from other authors in the field on such a tracker and the resulting revisions

than I could ever gain in the peer review process of a journal.

Mark my words, this is where things are going to go, eventually.

regards

benjamin