🚀 go-pugleaf

> Date: Tue, 07 Apr 92 20:07:46 -0400
> From: Edward Vielmetti <emv@msen.com>
>
> From earlier discussion, I take it to mean that the standard Usenet
> practice of "moderation" doesn't fall into your peer review category,
> mostly because there's a single moderator and not a community of peers,
> and becuase the reviews and the moderation are hardly anonymous.

No, Usenet "moderation" is definitely not peer review (see literature
below). The hallmark of peer review, however, is not anonymity but peer
status and competence. The self-appointed moderators of most of the
Usenet groups that are concerned with scholarly/scientific discussion
have no special qualification or expertise, which likewise has to be
assessed by peer review -- not by the general public, but by the
specialists in each given field of expertise.

> Usenet tends to be community-based and self-sustaining; if some people
> make a few bucks along the way in order for the whole process to go
> forward, that's what it takes.  It remains to be seen whether more
> peer-reviewed forums (e.g. comp.sources.reviewed) pop up; given the
> costs of coordinating a multiple-reviewer system it may be sufficiently
> unwieldy to discourage all but a few.

Nothing wrong with a few bucks being made (1) if the service performed
is essential to electronic journal publication and (2) it is not
available for free or for less.

Stevan Harnad
--------------------
Harnad, S. (1979) Creative disagreement. The Sciences 19: 18 - 20.

Harnad, S. (ed.) (1982) Peer commentary on peer review: A case study in
scientific quality control, New York: Cambridge University Press.

Harnad, S. (1984) Commentaries, opinions and the growth of scientific
knowledge. American Psychologist 39: 1497 - 1498.

Harnad, S. (1985) Rational disagreement in peer review. Science,
Technology and Human Values 10: 55 - 62.

Harnad, S. (1986) Policing the Paper Chase. (Review of S. Lock, A
difficult balance: Peer review in biomedical publication.)
Nature 322: 24 - 5.

Harnad, S. (1990) Scholarly Skywriting and the Prepublication Continuum
of Scientific Inquiry.  Psychological
Science 1: 342 - 343 (reprinted in Current Contents 45: 9-13, November
11 1991).

Harnad, S. (1991) Post-Gutenberg Galaxy: The Fourth Revolution in the
Means of Production of Knowledge. Public-Access Computer Systems Review
2 (1): 39 - 53 (also reprinted in PACS Annual Review Volume 2
1992; and in R. D. Mason (ed.) Computer Conferencing: The Last Word. Beach
Holme Publishers, 1992; and in A. L. Okerson (ed.) Directory of
Electronic Journals, Newsletters, and Academic Discussion Lists, 2nd
edition. Washington, DC, Association of Research Libraries, Office of
Scientific & Academic Publishing, 1992).

Harnad, S. (1992) Interactive Publication: Extending the
American Physical Society's Discipline-Specific Model for Electronic
Publishing. Serials Review, Special Issue on Economics Models for
Electronic Publishing, pp. 58 - 61.