
#redirect Wikipedia:Peer review
#REDIRECT Peer_review
:This article refers to the scholarly process of screening papers. For the Wikipedia process of improving articles, see Wikipedia:Peer review. Peer review (known as refereeing in some academic fields) is a Scholarly method process used in the publication of manuscripts and in the awarding of funding for research. Publishers and funding agencies use peer review to select and to screen submissions. The process also forces authors to meet the standards of their discipline. Publications and awards that have not undergone peer review are likely to be regarded with suspicion by scholars and professionals in many fields. [[Image:ScientificReview.jpg|thumbnail|300px|A reviewer at the National Institutes of Health evaluates a grant proposal.]] ==Reasons for peer review== A rationale for peer review is that it is rare for an individual author or research team to spot every mistake or flaw in a complicated piece of work. This is not because deficiencies represent needles in a haystack, but because in a new and perhaps eclectic intellectual product, an opportunity for improvement may stand out only to someone with special expertise or experience. Therefore showing work to others increases the probability that weaknesses will be identified, and with advice and encouragement, fixed. The anonymity and independence of reviewers is intended to foster unvarnished criticism and discourage cronyism in funding and publication decisions. == How it works == Peer review subjects an author's work or ideas to the scrutiny of one or more others who are experts in the field. These referees each return an evaluation of the work, including suggestions for improvement, to an editor or other intermediary (typically, most of the referees' comments are eventually seen by the author as well). Evaluations usually include an explicit recommendation of what to do with the manuscript or proposal, often chosen from a menu provided by the journal or funding agency. Most recommendations are along the lines of the following: * to unconditionally accept the manuscript or proposal, * to accept it in the event that its authors improve it in certain ways, * to reject it, but encourage revision and invite resubmission * to reject it outright. During this process, the role of the referees is advisory, and the editor is under no formal obligation to accept the opinions of the referees. Furthermore, in scientific publication, the referees do not act as a group, do not communicate with each other, and typically are not aware of each other's identities. There is usually no requirement that the referees achieve consensus. Thus the group dynamics is substantially different from that of a jury. In situations where the referees disagree about the quality of a work, there are a number of strategies for reaching a decision. Traditionally reviewers would remain anonymous to the authors, but this is slowly changing. In some academic fields most journals now offer the reviewer the option of remaining anonymous or not; papers sometimes contain, in the acknowledgments section, thanks to (named) referees who helped improve the paper. At a journal or book publisher, the task of picking reviewers typically falls to an editor. When a manuscript arrives, an editor solicits reviews from scholars or other experts who may or may not have already expressed a willingness to referee for that journal or book division. Granting agencies typically recruit a panel or committee of reviewers in advance of the arrival of applications. In some disciplines, such as computer science, there exist refereed venues (such as conferences and workshops). To be admitted to speak, scientists must submit a scientific paper (generally short, often 15 pages or less) in advance. This paper is reviewed by a "program committee" (the equivalent of an editorial board), who generally requests inputs from referees. The hard deadlines set by the conferences tend to limit the options to either accept or reject the paper. Typically referees are not selected from among the authors' close colleagues, relatives, or friends. Referees are supposed to inform the editor of any conflict of interests that might arise. Journals or individual editors often invite a manuscript's authors to name people whom they consider qualified to referee their work. Authors are sometimes also invited to name natural candidates who should be ''disqualified'', in which case they may be asked to provide justification (typically expressed in terms of conflict of interest). Editors solicit author input in selecting referees because academia writing typically is very specialized. Editors often oversee many specialties, and may not be experts in any of them, since editors may be full time professionals with no time for scholarly method. But after an editor selects referees from the pool of candidates, the editor typically is obliged not to disclose the referees' identities to the authors, and in scientific journals, to each other. Policies on such matters differ between academic disciplines. Scientific journals observe this convention universally. The two or three chosen referees report their evaluation of the article and suggestions for improvement to the editor. The editor then relays the bulk of these comments to the author (some comments may be designated as confidential to the editor), meanwhile basing on them his or her decision whether to publish the manuscript. When an editor receives very positive and very negative reviews for the same manuscript, the editor often will solicit one or more additional reviews as a tie-breaker. As another strategy in the case of ties, editors may invite authors to reply to a referee's criticisms and permit a compelling rebuttal to break the tie. If an editor does not feel confident to weigh the persuasiveness of a rebuttal, the editor may solicit a response from the referee who made the original criticism. In rare instances, an editor will convey communications back and forth between authors and a referee, in effect allowing them to debate a point. Even in these cases, however, editors do not allow referees to confer with each other, and the goal of the process is explicitly not to reach consensus or to convince anyone to change their opinions. Some medical journals, however, (usually following the open access model) have begun posting on the Internet the pre-publication history of each individual article, from the original submission to reviewers' reports, authors' comments, and revised manuscripts. After reviewing and resolving any potential ties, there may be one of three possible outcomes for the article. The two simplest are outright rejection and unconditional acceptance. In most cases, the authors may be given a chance to revise, with or without specific recommendations or requirements from the reviewers. == Recruiting referees == Recruiting referees is a political art, because referees are not paid, and reviewing takes time away from the referee's main activities, such as his or her own research. To the would-be recruiter's advantage, most potential referees are authors themselves, or at least readers, who know that the publication system requires that experts donate their time. Editors are at an especial advantage in recruiting a scholar when they have overseen the publication of his or her work, or if the scholar is one who hopes to submit manuscripts to that editor's publication in the future. Granting agencies, similarly, tend to seek referees among their present or former grantees. Serving as a referee can even be a condition of a grant, or professional association membership. Another difficulty that peer-review organizers face is that, with respect to some manuscripts or proposals, there may be few scholars who truly qualify as experts. Such a circumstance often frustrates the goals of reviewer anonymity and the avoidance of conflicts of interest. It also increases the chances that an organizer will not be able to recruit true experts – people who have themselves done work like that under review, and who can read between the lines. Low-prestige journals and granting agencies that award little money are especially handicapped with regard to recruiting experts. Finally, anonymity adds to the difficulty in finding reviewers in another way. In scientific circles, credit and reputation are important, and while being a referee for a prestigious journal is considered an honor, the anonymity restrictions make it impossible to publicly state that one was a referee for a particular article. However, credit and reputation are principally established by publications, not by refereeing; and in some fields refereeing may not be anonymous. == Different styles of review == Peer review can be ''rigorous'', in terms of the skill brought to bear, without being highly ''stringent''. An agency may be flush with money to give away, for example, or a journal may have few impressive manuscripts to choose from, so there may be no use to being picky. Conversely, when either funds or publication space is limited, peer review may be used to select an extremely small number of proposals or manuscripts. Often the decision of what counts as "good enough" falls entirely to the editor or organizer of the review. In other cases, referees will each be asked to make the call, with only general guidance from the coordinator on what stringency to apply. Some journals such as ''Science (journal)'', ''Nature (journal)'', and ''Physical Review'' have extremely stringent standards for publication, and will reject papers which are of good quality scientific work that they feel are not breakthroughs in the field. Others such as the ''Astrophysical Journal'' use peer review primarily to filter out obvious mistakes and incompetence. Different publication rates reflect these different criteria: ''Nature'' publishes about 5 percent of received papers, while ''Astrophysical Journal'' publishes about 70 percent. The different publication rates are also reflected in the size of the journals. Screening by peers may be more or less laissez-faire depending on the discipline. Physicists, for example, tend to think that decisions about the worthiness of an article are best left to the marketplace. Yet even within such a culture peer review serves to ensure high standards in what is published. Outright errors are detected and authors receive both edits and suggestions. To preserve the integrity of the peer-review process, submitting authors are not informed of who reviews their papers; sometimes, they might not even know the identity of the associate editor who is responsible for the paper. In many cases, alternatively called "blind" or "double-blind" review, the identity of the authors is concealed from the reviewers, lest the knowledge of authorship bias their review; in such cases, however, the associate editor responsible for the paper does know who the author is. Sometimes the scenario where the reviewers do know who the authors are is called "single-blind" to distinguish it from the "double-blind" process. In double-blind review, the authors are required to remove any reference that may point to them as the authors of the paper. While the anonymity of reviewers is almost universally preserved, double-blind review (where authors are also anonymous to reviewers) is not always employed. Critics of the double-blind process point out that, despite the extra editorial effort to ensure anonymity, the process often fails to do so, since certain approaches, methods, notations, etc., may point to a certain group of people in a research stream, and even to a particular person. Proponents of the single-blind process argue that if the reviewers of a paper are unknown to each other, the associate editor responsible for the paper can easily verify the objectivity of the reviews. Double-blind review is thus strongly dependent upon the goodwill of the participants. == Criticisms of peer review == One of the most common complaints about the peer review process is that it is slow, and that it typically takes several months or even several years in some fields for a submitted paper to appear in print. In practice, much of the communication about new results in some fields such as astronomy no longer takes place through peer reviewed papers, but rather through preprints submitted onto electronic servers such as ArXiv.org_e-print_archive. In addition, some Science and technology studies argue that peer review makes the ability to publish susceptible to control by elites and to personal jealousy. Reviewers tend to be especially critical of conclusions that contradict their own views, and lenient towards those that accord with them. At the same time, elite scientists are more likely than less established ones to be sought out as referees, particularly by high-prestige journals or publishers. As a result, it has been argued, ideas that harmonize with the elite's are more likely to see print and to appear in premier journals than are iconoclastic or revolutionary ones, which accords with Thomas Kuhn's well-known observations regarding scientific revolutions. However, others have pointed out that there is a very large number of scientific journals in which one can publish, making control of information difficult. In addition, the decision-making process of peer review, in which each referee gives his opinions separately and without consultation with the other members, is intended to mitigate some of these problems. == History of peer review == Peer review has been a touchstone of modern scientific methodology apparently only since in the middle of the twentieth century.[http://www.designinference.com/documents/05.02.resp_to_wein.htm] Before then, its application was lax. For example, Albert Einstein's revolutionary "Annus Mirabilis" papers in the 1905 issue of ''Annalen der Physik'' were not peer-reviewed. The journal's editor in chief (and father of quantum theory), Max Planck, recognized the virtue of publishing such outlandish ideas and simply had the papers published; none of the papers were sent to reviewers. The decision to publish was made exclusively by either the editor in chief, or the co-editor Wilhelm Wien—both certainly ‘peers’ (who were later to win the Nobel prize in physics), but this does not meet the definition of "peer review" as it is currently understood. At the time there was a policy that allowed authors much latitude after their first publication. In a recent editorial in Nature, it was stated that "in journals in those days, the burden of proof was generally on the opponents rather than the proponents of new ideas." == Famous papers which were not peer-reviewed == Because of its relatively recent status as a fixture in the scientific enterprise, many of the major breakthroughs in the history of science ironically were published without having undergone peer review. However, even after peer review had become common practice, some famous papers have been published without review. These include: # Publication of James D. Watson and Francis Crick 1951 paper on the structure of DNA in ''Nature (journal)''. This paper was not sent out for peer review. John Maddox stated that “the Watson and Crick paper was not peer-reviewed by ''Nature''... the paper could not have been refereed: its correctness is self-evident. No referee working in the field (Linus Pauling?) could have kept his mouth shut once he saw the structure” (Nature 426:119 (2003)). The editors accepted the paper upon receipt of a “Publish” covering letter from influential physicist William Lawrence Bragg. == Peer review and fraud == Peer review, in scientific journals, assumes that the article reviewed has been honestly written, and the process is not designed to detect fraud. The reviewers usually do not have full access to the data from which the paper has been written and some elements have to be taken on trust (except perhaps in subjects such as mathematics). The number and proportion of articles which are detected as fraudulent at review stage is unknown. Some instances of outright scientific fraud and scientific misconduct have got through review and were detected only after other groups tried and failed to replicate the published results. An example is the case of Jan Hendrik Schön, in which a total of fifteen papers were accepted for publication in the top ranked journals ''Nature (journal)'' and ''Science (journal)'' following the usual peer review process. All fifteen were found to be fraudulent and were subsequently withdrawn. The fraud was eventually detected, not by peer review, but after publication when other groups tried and failed to reproduce the results of the paper. An example of what can happen within academic publications without peer-review is that of New York University Physics Professor Alan Sokal's publication of [http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/transgress_v2/transgress_v2_singlefile.html ''Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity''] in the journal [http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/social_text/ ''Social Text'']. The submission for publication by Sokal was a hoax known as the Sokal Affair. == Peer review and software development == A variety of kinds of peer review are used in various software development processes, including more formal and rigorous approaches termed Software inspection. In the open source movement, something like peer review has taken place in the engineering and evaluation of computer software. In this context, the rationale for peer review has its equivalent in Linus's law, often phrased: "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow," meaning "If there are enough reviewers, all problems are easy to solve." Eric S. Raymond has written influentially about peer review in software development, for example in the essay ''The Cathedral and the Bazaar.'' == See also == *Code review *Publication bias *Scholarly method *Sokal affair * ==External links== * [http://www.aacu.org/peerreview/about.cfm Magazine “Peer Review”] * [http://www.senseaboutscience.org.uk/PDF/peerReview.pdf Peer review and the acceptance of new scientific ideas] (''Warning:'' 469 kilobyte Portable Document Format) * [http://www.jpgmonline.com/article.asp?issn=0022-3859;year=2001;volume=47;issue=3;spage=210;epage=4;aulast=Gitanjali Peer review -- process, perspectives and the path ahead] * [http://www.allmedmd.com AllMed Healthcare Medical Peer Review] * [http://peerreview.blogs.com/peer_review/ Blog “PEER Review”] Scientific method
Talk:Peer review/Archive 1 ---- That which this article, and apparently the general public, calls "peer review", is known in mathematics and statistics as "refereeing". If not for TV news broadcasts and other media addressed to the hoi polloi, I would never have heard the term "peer review". Persons whom editors of scholarly journals ask to review submitted papers are "referees". It is certainly plausible that in other fields they call it something else, but I wonder if some specificity is in order here: what are the fields in which it is called "peer review"? User:Michael Hardy 18:13 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC) :My understanding is that the two phrases are used in complementary ways -- a journal or an article may be called either refereed or peer-reviewed; the peer-review process involves one or more referees (that is, the reviewers are always called referees in my experience, but the process is more often called "peer review"). That said, I strongly take issue with the accuracy of this article. It is far from certain that peer-review leads to increased quality of articles; it certainly does promote conformity to general standards. And Wikipedia is most definitely not peer-reviewed in the academic sense; the whole point of Wikipedia is that anyone can be a referee, including people with widely varying levels of education in very diffeent fields. User:Slrubenstein ::Agreed. In literature, as authors go in and out of vogue, many leave in their wake a body of books and peer-reviewed journals by and for fans of the authors. These books and journals are considered not to be authoritative by academics even though they are peer-reviewed because of the non-critical nature of the work. They reflect the qualities appreciated by the author's admirers, but often gloss over important or embarassing information about the author. --User:Modemx 19:59, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC) You haven't said what field you're in. I have not heard of "peer review" in mathematics, but I've refereed some papers and had my own refereed. It's called "refereeing", not "peer review". But, if I can believe what I keep hearing, in ''some'' fields it's called "peer review". So my question is: which ones? User:Michael Hardy 23:24 Mar 1, 2003 (UTC) : Computer Science. See any Call for Papers from [http://www.computer.org/ IEEE Computer society] and [http://www.acm.org/ Association for Computer Machinery]. --- ejrrjs Also, what about the anonymity issue? In mathematics, referees or usually anonymous, i.e., papers' authors don't know who the referees are, although they read the referees' reports, but referees generally ''do'' know who the authors are. I have heard that in some fields, they don't. Which ones? Maybe biology? User:Michael Hardy 23:26 Mar 1, 2003 (UTC) :This notion may be misunderstood, and thus may upset people, but I do not feel math is a science, it is more like a language, one that humans discovered and one that is self-consistent and extraordinarily useful while practicing science. Peer review would be useless in mathematics, as the proof is on the page, so to speak. There is no need to consult history (or "accepted" notions, which peer review does compare "new" ideas to as a basis for their validity) when "refereeing" a statistics or mathematics paper. - User:Plautus satire 14:30, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC) ::I suspect that you do not know much about the workings of the mathematical community. First, it's inexact to state that the "proof is on the page". Real-life mathematical proofs are not machine-checkable (excluding fringe projects like Mizar) and generally require considerable expertise to be understood. Very subtle mistakes can arise; the author may have believed that some point should be skipped because it was "easy"; he may have made a definition that was subtly inconsistent; etc... For instance, checking whether Andrew Wiles' proof of Fermat's last theorem is correct is a job for only a few other high level mathematicians. ::Plautus satire's comments are nonsense. I have refereed papers for five mathematics journals, and my published papers have been refereed (and some unpublished ones that I submitted). Obviously history is consulted; obviously proof-checking is ''not'' the main point of refereeing; obviously novel ideas are examined in the context of accepted notions. To say that mathematics is not a science but a "language" ignores the fact that hundreds of journals are devoted to publishing new discoveries in mathematics. Obviously in judging publication-worthiness one considers how new discoveries may be relevant to potential future research; one considers esthetics (which for most mathematicians is the main motive for doing mathematics or for learning mathematics). Where did you get this loony idea that there is no need to consult history? Do you not see sections on how a new discovery fits into the historical development of the subject in many research papers in mathematics? User:Michael Hardy 22:33, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC) ::Second, there's an issue that many philosopher and sociologists that discuss science neglect: refereeing is not only about gauging whether a paper is scientifically correct, but also of gauging whether it's scientifically interesting. It's possible to write a whole paper of correct mathematics by writing 1=1, 2=2, 3=3... Yet, such a paper would be totally uninteresting, since it would not advance science, by saying evidences (trivial tautologies). One may for instance judge that a paper does not warrant publication in a major journal if it's about some gratuitous mathematical theory. Such judgment is of course somewhat subjective. User:David.Monniaux 19:20, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC) ::A common argument I've had before with my students. My response is that people should actually look in a peer-reviewed journal of mathematics and then try to argue why math isn't a science. Math is "the mother of all sciences." --User:Modemx 20:43, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC) == Questionable para from fraud section == (User:William M. Connolley 08:37, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)) I've moved this here for discussion: : While fraud obviously has severe negative consequences for the author of a paper, there are generally no adverse consequences to either the editor or the reviewers for recommending publication of a fraudulent paper, as detecting fraud is not a goal of the process, and the editors and reviewers almost never have enough information to detect outright fraud. Who says that there are no consequences for editors (or reviewers - less sure). Quite likely, the editors get a black mark in their career record - what this text means probably is that nothing about that appears in the newspapers? Hi William. Fair point...when Nature withdrew the Schon papers, the editorial said Nature this week finds itself in the unenviable (and unprecedented) position of formally retracting seven papers (see page 92). All share the same first author, Jan Hendrik Schön (see Nature 419, 417; 2002); in fact, this represents the entire body of work published by Schön in this journal. which *does* look like severe negative consequences on the Journal, if not the Editor...nevertheless, the referees (being anonymous and voluntary, as much as anything) do escape censure....WMMV. best User:Robinh 10:23, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC) Hi again. Another gem from Nature Editorial, 3 Oct 2002: In some media reports, journalists and a few scientists who are unconnected with the Schön investigations have taken the opportunity to make potentially damaging assertions about journals, including Nature: that in order to compete or to publish exciting results, journals will cut corners in peer review, overrule hostile reviewers or select sympathetic ones. We at Nature unequivocally reject such charges. The publication history and files of these particular papers and the editorial policies and interests of Nature are completely at odds with these assertions. Nature has nothing to gain by the pursuit of glamour at the expense of scientific quality, considering, not least, the criticisms, corrections and retractions we would then habitually be forced to publish. There is more than enough rock-solid and splendid science to publish. Furthermore, it is a strict policy of Nature that our Letters and Articles are selected for their outstanding scientific impact, sometimes also taking into account relevance to public policy issues, but never simply because the results will make headlines. User:Robinh 13:16, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC) == Image == I added a picture from the [http://www.csr.nih.gov/ Center for Scientific Review webpage]. However, since I don't have a decent image editing program handy, the orginal that I uploaded is very big and probably should be edited for size. I'm pretty sure it's public domain, since it's from the NIH, a Federal government organization. There are several other images on the same webpage, under "images of peer review" (handy, huh?). User:Sayeth 19:43, Aug 4, 2004 (UTC) ==Grammar question== ''"A chief rationale for peer review is that rarely is just one person, or one closely working group, able to spot every mistake or weakness ..."'' -- is that correct english? It seems to me that the "is" and "able" should be together, but english is not my native language. Could somebody enlighten me? -- User:Stw (User talk:Stw 09:52, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC) :I think this phenomenon is referred to as inversion (grammar). Inversion is the normal word order in questions (Must they feed the animals?) and can also be used after a "negative", restrictive adverb or phrase (Under no circumstances must they feed the animals. Never before have I heard such nonsense. Rarely do they eat meat. etc.) :However, you can altogether avoid this construction by not putting the adverb at the beginning of the sentence. -- Any good grammar will have more details. All the best, User:KF 10:44, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC) ==Peer Review used to suppress opposing views== Perhaps we should mention that some scholars have charged that in environmental science, billions of dollars per year are subsidizing one viewpoint, i.e., the theory of anthropogenic global warming -- and that this financial pressure may be sufficient to corrupt the peer review process. Thus, perfectly valid results may then be dismissed from consideration on the grounds that they did not pass peer review. However, failing peer review is not proof that a paper has errors; only that the referees chosen to review it, diasagreed with it. This is science by voting, which is a self-contradiction. The only reliable criterion for the worthiness of an idea is whether others who try earnestly to verify it are able to do so. Science is replete with examples of important and valuable new ideas which were suppressed by the establishment (germ theory of disease, for example), and we should not exalt peer review as being immune to this type of abuse. --User:Ed Poor 14:59, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC) :Furthermore, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence," said Carl Sagan[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/aliens/carlsagan.html]. If someone comes out with evidence to support an unpopular hypothesis (for example, "life exists on Mars" in 1975), they have to prove it beyond refute before it can even be considered seriously. -- User:Ke4roh 16:04, Aug 15, 2004 (UTC) :Nonsense, if I submit the idea that it is possible to get to the moon by jumping on a pogo stick will the only criterion for "worthiness" be if several other scientists "try earnestly to verify it"? No, the worthlessness of some ideas are self-evident. The scientific process can be far more easily corrupted by, for example, the deep pockets of Washington think tanks. --User:Deglr6328 18:17, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC) :For an idea to be considered scientifically valid it also must be repeatable. For example, Einstein supported his general theory of relativity with a simply replicated experiment that proved the existence of quantum states of energy. "The establishment" initially rejected his findings because it was from someone who was "just a patent clerk." It was the repeatability of his experiment that helped put Einstein's ideas in the firmament of scientifically valid ideas. Contrast that with the researchers who railed against "the establishment" when their claims of being able to experimentally mass produce Fullerines (a.k.a. "Bucky Balls") were rejected because lack of repeatability. When someone actually found the process to mass produce Fullerines, some of those researchers were found out to simply be liars with economic rather than scientific motivations. Just because someone presents an arguably valid alternate theory about a matter of scientific controversy doesn't mean that it should be treated with equal weight to established theories because of "fairness." Fairness to the truth demands a body of repeatable results that gains the adherence of the scientific community and the standards should be high because the costs of bad science are high. --User:Modemx 20:28, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC) == The picture == (User:William M. Connolley 09:51, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)) The picture at the start of this article doesn't look right to me. I don't think the chap is evaluating (in the sense of peer review) the proposals - he looks more like he is checking a pile of submitted proposals that all the boxes have been filled in. :You could be right - he/she (I can't really tell) is looking over the front page of what looks like a NRSA application. The front page has stuff like name, institution, and proposal title. However, the following pages contain the grant proposal, which is peer reveiwed. From the picture, the person looking at the grant could be just checking to make sure that boxes are filled in or he/she could be starting to read the entire grant, begining at the front page with the applicant's information. As I stated above, I got the picture from the [http://www.csr.nih.gov/ Center for Scientific Review webpage]. Looking over all the pictures they had there, I decided that this was probably best suited to the article, since many of the other pictures depicted reviewers debating grant proposals, which would be confusing to people reading about how peer review for journal articles is done anonymously. You're welcome to try to find another picture that better depicts peer review or just change the caption. Personally, I think this picture is okay, since it could be interpeted as someone starting to read a grant, but improvement is always welcome. User:Sayeth 15:44, Aug 18, 2004 (UTC) ==Lack of references== Hi, this page no longer meets all of the Wikipedia:What is a featured article. Specifically it has no references, or at least any that are Wikipedia:Cite sources. Please help add some references, use them to improve the article and cite them. Thanks - User:Taxman 01:19, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC) == Spoken? == (User:William M. Connolley 22:50, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)) The new "spoken" thing doesn't work for me... when I click on "listen to this article" I get back to the text article again. Is something broken? ==Request for references== Hi, I am working to encourage implementation of the goals of the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy. Part of that is to make sure articles Wikipedia:Cite sources. This is particularly important for featured articles, since they are a prominent part of Wikipedia, and even moreso for an article like this one. The Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check has more information. Thank you, and please [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Taxman&action=edit§ion=new leave me a message] when you have added a few references to the article. - User:Taxman 19:18, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)
''[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia:Peer_review&action=purge Purge server cache]'' This page is for nearly Featured-standard articles that need the final checking by peers before being nominated as Wikipedia:Featured article candidates. Requests for peer review are listed here to expose articles to closer scrutiny than they might otherwise receive. See Wikipedia:Style and How-to Directory for advice on writing Wikipedia:How to write a great article. Or look at the discussion of Wikipedia:The perfect article and try to reach as close to as many of those ideals as possible. If an article needs extensive work, please list it on Wikipedia:Pages needing attention, Wikipedia:Requests for expansion or Wikipedia:Cleanup. Please list article content disputes on Wikipedia:Requests for comment rather than here. Note: Peer review is the process of review by peers and usually implies a group of authoritative reviewers that are equally familiar and expert in the subject. The process represented by this page is not formal peer review in that sense and articles that under go this process cannot be assumed to have greater authority than any other. __TOC__ ==Requests== ==Archives== *Wikipedia:Peer review/June 2005 (current) *Wikipedia:Peer review/May 2005 *Wikipedia:Peer review/April 2005 *Wikipedia:Peer review/March 2005 *Wikipedia:Peer review/February 2005 *Wikipedia:Peer review/January 2005 *Wikipedia:Peer review/December 2004 *Wikipedia:Peer review/Archive 3 *Wikipedia:Peer review/Archive 2 *Wikipedia:Peer review/Archive 1 Editorial validation simple:Peer Review
== Miscellaneous == I have just created Wikipedia:Requests for comments as a forum for announcing any matters that need commentary by other people. I've made such requests pretty frequently, and thought it might be helpful to have a page like this. Comments? -- User:Wapcaplet 13:12 17 Jul 2003 (UTC) : How is this different from Wikipedia:Village pump? Way more people watch that page. I admit I RFC too, but I think the solution is to clean the pump more often. -- User:Merphant 05:12 22 Jul 2003 (UTC) :: ... except that, with the ridiculous imposition on the length of the Pump due to dilapedated browsers, as the number of people working on the Wikipedia grows, so do the number of comments and so on that require attention; stratifying different sorts of comments into different sections seems much more sensible, extendable, and flexable, IMHO. :: User:Jdforrester 07:08 22 Jul 2003 (UTC) :::I've started a Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wikidemia on the realtime version of the Village Pump. see it Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wikidemia/WikipediaIRC User:Quinobi 20:15, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC) ---- I propose a simple solution: First, move this page to wikipedia:peer review. It's a cool name, and it'll annoy wikipedia:responses who claim that Wikipedia doesn't have peer review. wikipedia:peer review is for saying "Hey, I wrote this cool entry (or set of entries) on X - what do you folks think?" - great for newbies and folks like that. wikipedia:village pump is for everything else. User:MyRedDice 12:38, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC) :Sounds good to me -- especially the 'annoying our doubters' part :-). :User:Jdforrester 13:38, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC) :Done and done. Though, I am not sure why this talk page didn't get moved along with it... I swear I checked the "move talk page too" box. Good to see someone besides me finally using this page! :-) -- User:Wapcaplet 18:14, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC) :: Fixed. I should add something to wikipedia:move. User:MyRedDice 19:34, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC) ---- I agree completely with Wapcaplet suggestion. It's a very nice way of reducing Village Pump size and foccusing atention on this special kind of request. In fact, this page appeared just in time! I already posted a proposal for wiki peer demoliting. I also like the idea of the peer review page. User:Muriel Gottrop 13:47, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC) ==Requesting feedback on an article== ''Moved from Wikipedia:Village pump/March 2003 archive 3 on Thursday, September 15th, 02003.'' Is there an "official" way of requesting feedback on an article (Nickel and Dimed)? Should I appeal to individual users, at the risk of annoying them, or is feedback subtly given through edits? Should I leave a message on the talk page and hope for a response or should I just leave a comment at the village pump :)? If feedback is rarely given (I would venture due to the ever-changing nature of articles), would someone mind making an exception and looking over the entry? I'm asking for two reasons, development in my writing (I'm a senior in high school) and for future reference as I would like to add similar entries on other books in my collection (after a quick reread of course :)). Thanks. -- User:Notheruser 03:16 Mar 19, 2003 (UTC) :There's no official way as far as I know. If you're aware of a specific problem with the article you can use Wikipedia:Pages needing attention, but that's not really appropriate in this case. My advice would be to ask your English teacher to review the article for you. Teachers are usually overjoyed when their students do extra work, and if you frame the question right, you'll probably get a lengthy response. Print out a hard copy. I guess your other option is one of the ones you suggested -- risk annoyance and suck up to a random contributor on their talk page. -- User:Tim Starling 05:08 Mar 20, 2003 (UTC) ::Thanks for the response. I think I'll try a teacher rather than risk annoying a user. I don't want to step on anybody's toes (not in my first month here, maybe later :) ) -- User:Notheruser 06:31 Mar 20, 2003 (UTC) General feed back for any article from : if you understand NPOV you won't go too far == Guidelines == Proposed Guideline # If you are listing a newly created page, leave a comment on the user talk page of the contributor so that he can participate in the discussion or atleast see that the page is being discussed. User:Hemanshu 09:24, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC) == Length of ''the Article for which'' this ''is the Talk'' page == This page is likely to get very long. I suggest a list format for this page and the actual discussion to take place at the Talk page of the article. So 2 links here... to the article and to its talk page. User:Hemanshu 09:26, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC) :Your proposal is actually part of the policy of this page, but many people (including me) have not been following it, either through ignorance or negligence. -User:Smack 22:10, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC) :Yep, there's a good reason I made up those original policies :-) Anyway, I've moved some of the lengthier stuff to the appropriate discussion areas; this page seems to be popular enough now that it will need periodic cleaning and archiving, just like the Village Pump. -- User:Wapcaplet 23:07, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC) ::Good point. I've added it to the list of Wikipedia:Wikipedia maintenance. User:Angelauser talk:Angela 13:11, Jan 11, 2004 (UTC) ---- == Lurid Message Box == The green message surrounded by the red dotted border is rather lurid and detracts from the page, IMO. Any objects if the message is demoted to a mere bold - a la the top of VfD? User:Pcb21 User_talk:Pcb21 10:01, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC) : Getting attention on the msg is more important that esthetics. Consider changing it if and when people demonstrate awareness of how to use the page. --User:Jerzy 08:09, 2004 Feb 6 (UTC) ::I couldn't stand the green any longer. Let's see how people use the page, which doesn't grow particularly quickly anyway. User:Pcb21 User_talk:Pcb21 19:55, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC) ==Reciprocal Reviews?== I had an idea to encourage more people to particpate, and have quicker turnover. What if we ask that people ''give'' one or two peer reviews to others before listing a page of their own for review? Nothing that needs to be enforced heavily or create more bureaucracy, just a different application of w:WikiLove. You'd just add another bullet point to your request for review, mentioning the articles you had commented on, to help motivate others to return the favor. Thoughts? User:CatherineMunro 19:44, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC) :That could work, provided people remember ones that they've given feedback on in the past. It may be best if it's strictly voluntary and informal. Perhaps just a simple suggestion towards the top of the page to "please consider giving some feedback on existing requests before posting a request of your own." I think I'll do that right now, in fact... -- User:Wapcaplet 20:06, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC) ==Cleanup?== Is there a policy regarding cleaning up the Peer Review page? The removal sections says posts can be removed "after they've been here a while." How long is "a while"? The page is getting lengthy and there's stuff dating to September. --User:Zandperl 18:46, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC) :Good point, though I know some of this stuff is still here because the desired feedback has not been received yet. Perhaps it'd be a good idea to check with the person who posted something before removing it from this page. An archive is probably not necessary, since past requests aren't likely to be of much interest. -- User:Wapcaplet 00:24, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC) :I've left messages for the posters of several of the oldest (pre-December) requests on their talk pages, asking them to come by and remove old requests if they have enough feedback. I think I'll make some alterations to the "Using this page" section for future cleanup, since the process of cleaning this page is going to be somewhat different than it is for others. -- User:Wapcaplet 23:29, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC) ==vs. Pages needing attention== What's the difference between this and Wikipedia:Pages needing attention? --User:Zandperl 14:23, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC) My impression was that Wikipedia:Pages needing attention is a place to list articles you find that need help whilst Wikipedia:Peer review is for your own articles when you want feedback. User:Angelauser talk:Angela 20:49, Apr 5, 2004 (UTC) Thanks, look like it's been cleared up a bit in the two pages' headers. I'll see if I can't make it even more obvious. :) --User:Zandperl 23:30, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC) ==Refactor by topic ?== The list of requests for peer review is rather long, and visitors may not take the time to read the full list to find an article they can contribute to. A classification of those requests (using sub-heading) would greatly help. Why not use the list of topics on the wikipedia main page as the classification principle ? (I'm not directly interested to update the page myself, but I guess anybody could; an "Other" category would capture all the requests that are not classified yet). User:Pcarbonn 20:48, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC) :I would go futher and suggest sub-pages for different disciplines, that way users would be more likely to add Peer review to their watchlists, for example, I'd watch "WP:Peer reviews/Biology", and "Peer review/United Kingdom", but not the whole peet review page.. --User:Steinsky 00:15, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC) ==Time limit to detect dead requests ?== I have reviewed the Wikipedia:Peer_review#Removing_requests_from_this_list policy, and I find it too weak: it fails when the requestor has left the wikipedia community (which I hope does not happen often...). As a result, the list of requests starts with what seems like dead requests, not an engaging thing for potential reviewers (like me) (on top of that, the list is very long, see topic above). So, we would need a way to detect dead requests. I think that only a time limit would do it. It could work like this: * any entry without a time stamp would be moved to the "dead request" area, with the time stamp of today * anybody could move an entry older than the stated time limit to the "dead request" section * the requestor would have to repost his entry to extend the time limit (he can do so before it is moved out, of course) The advantage is that a reviewer would have some kind of assurance that the requestor is still listening... Do you agree that there are some dead requests ? How should they be handled ? Do you agree that there should be a time limit ? What should it be ? One month ? Do you see a problem if I change the description of the peer review process accordingly ? User:Pcarbonn 21:00, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC) == Inconsistency == I've been scolded for not properly formatting my entry on this page, and I have a problem with that because: *The current entries are formatted in different ways *Virtually none of them conform to what it says at the top of the page: **It says to add a topic like this: "== Topic === ". When I did this (though without the extra equals sign), my entry got converted to a different format ("== Topic == " then "Item:Topic - Talk:Topic "
**There is no mention of the practice of using the terms "Item:", "Discussion on:", "Description:", but these are (inconsistently) applied.
etc.
User:Chameleon— Chameleon User:Chameleon/User talk:Chameleon/User:Chameleon/Images uploaded 20:35, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
== Make more like FAC ==
One of the big problems with this page is that it looks dead. I suggest putting new entries at top and have the discussion ''here'' instead of the article's talk page (the talk will be archived there, though). I'll do this myself in a few days if nobody objects. If there are objections, then we will have to form a consensus on what to do. --00:29, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)
: I support this idea. It would also be good to mention that it's the responsibility of the person who lists the page to transfer any discussion to the Talk: page upon delisting. User:Matt Crypto 00:38, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)
::I would support that, the FAC process is much more engaging and interesting. Peer review the way it is now never seems to gather much attention for each article. - User:Taxman 12:19, Aug 3, 2004 (UTC)
:::Definitely support! Every time I use peer review, *nothing* happens. This page is nearly worthless, and next to that, it's not even as well known or publicised as other pages. User:Johnleemk | User talk:Johnleemk 12:01, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)
:Besides the author's suggestions, I think there should be a that expands similarly to ? - User:Taxman 20:29, Aug 23, 2004 (UTC)
:Edit template:peerreview to create something to insert with
Speaking of morale, it's bad for dynamics and discouraging for reviewers if there's no feedback to comments, compare right now Vermont, Eric W. Weisstein, Richard Blumenthal, French phonology and orthography, Municipality of Strathfield, History of the Strathfield area, Etty Hillesum, Autism, Korean Buddhism, and The Passion of the Christ (Hello, Ta Bu Shi Da Yu, several of those listings are yours), which in many cases also have not even been edited since receiving comments. Perhaps the instructions need to contain a more direct and upbeat exhortation to the requesters to please remember to watchlist the page when they've posted a request—something more concrete than the present claim that the listing will be removed if you haven't responded within a week. OK, even though I worry about instruction creep and having the top-of-the-page stuff grow so long that nobody'll read it, I've boldly added a short sentence about watchlisting in the “How to make a request” section. Dear reader, just take it out if you don't approve. I'd appreciate some response to my other points—Taxman, are you still there, or did you get tired of the one-man conversation ?--User:Bishonen | User talk:Bishonen 13:31, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC) :Ya, three of the current ones are mine. I have, however, since edited Municipality of Strathfield to try to resolve an objection. I'm not sure if it's FAC worthy yet, however. - User:Ta bu shi da yu 09:26, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC) :I concur fully with all of your points. One thing I experienced myself is the fact that too much entries scarcely get comments. In the past, I've had this with Gbe languages (was listed two weeks without getting one comment) and Force Dynamics (got a thorough copyedit session by User:MIT Trekkie, but no further comments). I've been trying to remedy this by reviewing other articles myself. If everyone did this, it should work, right? User:Mark Dingemanse— User:Mark Dingemanse User Talk:Mark Dingemanse 15:03, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC) :Oh, and another thing: is it a good idea to encourage removal of listings that clearly don't meet the purpose of peer review (like some of RickK's recent questions about advertising or copyvio's)? I think it is. User:Mark Dingemanse— User:Mark Dingemanse User Talk:Mark Dingemanse 15:23, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC) ::I think it is, but for current FAC's at least there is (so far) no consensus to remove, but I would be for that too. Then lest them relist if it fails FAC. The duplication of comments are often ignored, wasting everyone's efforts. - User:Taxman 17:26, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC) :I fully support your aims of revitalizing WP:PR, but we need to figure out how to do it and reduce the voluminous instructions the page now has. Yes I did just get tired of talking to myself. I think we should remove the policy part to a separate page that we point to only if people question what happened, and leave only the most important instructions. Overall, the best thing for PR would be to have both more comments and more responses from listers. One way to do that is to remove listings that have had no response to comments by the lister. I have simply not enforced that policy because I had not gotten much seconding from anyone on it. Another way is to remove innapropriate listings as Mark has mentioned. The only tough part there is you need to have a policy that can back you up that people have agreed on. That is instruction creep which is bad, but maybe that is why we should have policy on a separate page such as WP:PR/Policy. Finally short instructions that do make it clear to the lister it is their responsibility to help implement suggestions. I haven't even been consistently adding the template to listed articles talk pages to let other editors know it is on PR. That needs to be done too. Agree/disagree/thoughts? - User:Taxman 17:26, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC) ::Do you mean that you're in charge of Peer review, to the extent of feeling responsible for adding the template...? The listers are supposed to add it, aren't they? A separate policy page plus very simple instructions on PR itself seems like a brilliant idea to me. But what I don't understand is how we're ever going to get any number of people to "agree on" any Peer review policy at all, considering the look and the date stamps on this Talk page: how're you even going to tell people that a policy is up for discussion? The policy section of the Village Pump...? (Frankly, though, do people read that?) Lack of interest in this (or any) page is a bit of a circular problem, I guess. People go to WP:FAC and take part in the process because they're interested in the process--they don't do it just when they want to nominate something of their own, which seems to be the case, and kind of a self-perpetuating problem, on PR. At least, I'm afraid that's exactly what I did myself: I've been reviewing some entries recently because I've got one of my own up now (fruitlessly, Shakespeare's reputation). I think you're doing a very useful thing, Taxman, in mentioning PR a lot on WP:FAC and trying to get people to to use PR as a stepping-stone to FAC; I wish I could think of some other ideas for enlivening PR. It could/should be a very important and helpful process.--User:Bishonen | User talk:Bishonen 22:11, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC) :::I've not been deemed in charge, but my general philosophy is that if I know how to do something the way it should be done and no one else does it, I should. Of course the listers are supposed to, but currently few do I think. Shorter, clearer instructions would help a lot. Don't worry about waiting for lots of people to weigh in on this, we are talking about really non controversial changes--basically enforcing policy that is already there for the most part and clarifying for the rest. I wont have a chance to split the policy stuff off until perhaps sometime tonight if I am lucky, but have a go at it if you have a chance. Having the instructions be the shortest they can possibly be, but get the aims of PR accross and the mechanics would be good. - User:Taxman 23:30, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC) :::I've been toying with ideas to freshen up PR myself, as I am disappointed both by the level of feedback on PR as compared to FAC (substantive edits should not be made while on FAC, in my opinion — that's what PR is for), and my inability to parse PR effectively to give feedback on articles eventually headed to FAC, which I'd like to do (Bishonen, Shakespeare's rep is on my list!!!). One idea I came up with is to categorize PR — by status, not by topic. For example, we could have a "Future FAC" category, with subheadings corresponding to how much work needs to be done: e.g. "Someday I'd like this to be on FAC", "This article is halfway to FAC", and "Just stopping in for a final checkup before FAC". Other categories could include requests for PR following an edit war or POV edit; single-author articles in search of broader input; articles needing detective work on fact checking, possible copyvios, or advertising; etc. Alternatively, we could keep the FAC categories only, and be more forceful about directing other PR requests to more appropriate lists including Needs Attention, Needs Cleanup, etc. My hunch is that if PR were really the final filter before FAC it would get a lot more attention than it does now, serving as a catch-all for people looking for help. User:Bantman 23:02, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC) ::::I think we should take the steps Bishonen and I have outlined above first then come back to the bit more extensive changes you have outlined if we can get more support for them. Lets see how delisting innapropriate and 'ingnored by the poster' listings, and clearer instructions work first? Are you ok with that in the short term? I would like to make a smaller set of changes first because I believe they will work very well. Thanks - User:Taxman 23:30, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC) :::::Yes, I support this plan (is this turning into a vote?). Let's give the first set of changes some time; I know my ideas are more radical, so lets shelve them for a month or so and see if more changes are still needed then. User:Bantman 00:14, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC) :::::I support this plan too. User:Mark Dingemanse— User:Mark Dingemanse User Talk:Mark Dingemanse 00:19, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC) ::::::This is a unanimous vote from all contributors to this talk page over the last 100 days. :) User:Bantman 00:35, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC) :I agree that WP:PR is not as effective as it could be. Perhaps we need to split peer review into at least two parts: :#a mandatory period of pre-FAC review ("purgatory"?) - I think this is what they do on the German wikipedia, wherethe rules seem to be much stricter and the process seems to be organised much more efficiently - for example, there is a "article review of the day" on the main page (a bit like a daily WP:COTW), and FAC failures can be sent back for further review, and
:#a request for more input for not-yet-near-FAC articles (although query whether this is any different to adding :template:expansion?).
:-- User:ALoan User_talk:ALoan 19:32, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
== Transcluding has been done ==
In order to keep track of peer review better, and in order to maintain the page more easily, I have converted the page to a transclude mechanism, similar to WP:FAC. Please use this mechanism for peer review! - User:Ta bu shi da yu 08:30, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
:Cool, I think it's a big improvement. I have a few questions though. What should be done to remove a listing? If you only remove the line from Peer Review page, the subpage still exists. That's not always OK I think — I can imagine an article brought up a second time, in that case its subpage is already taken. Oh well, then it can be reused of course (I don't know how they do that on WP:FAC). But what if I just want to remove a clearly wrong listing (like someone's IP, listed to ask the peer reviewers to check his contributions)? The subpage is of no use in that case as I don't see the need for archiving that sort of listings. Regarding archiving entries: is that done by simply moving the line ==Peer review== (or whatever title seems more appropriate). Not at the top of the page, that's confusing. In fact, the easiest way to add it would be to use the 'Add comment' feature.
# Something along the lines of ''Wikipedia:Peer review/ has been archived.'', providing a link to the old request (if that is needed at all — remember that it would be only confusing if an article comes on PR for a second time). Next to that, something along the lines of ''Below, you can find the original request along with the comments it resulted in:''
# Just insert the request and the comments it received in that section, by using {{subst:Wikipedia:Peer review/}} . The headings will nest nicely, so it will look good in the TOC. Of course, the linked subheading will look ugly. Nothing to do about that. The ''subst'' inserts the content of that page as wikitext, so as to prevent a possible new PR request from displaying as if it is old. Additionally, the rationale behind just 'substing' the comments like this is that only those are relevant about the article having gone through PR. Old PR request pages should not be revived; any discussion that could take place on a PR request ''after'' it has been archived should take place on the talk page of the article itself.
# Maybe some line saying ''End of PR request'' would be good, I'm not sure about that.
# Of course, all of this can be put into a template.
What do people think? User:Mark Dingemanse— User:Mark Dingemanse User Talk:Mark Dingemanse 15:20, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
The old peer review labels can be a bit annoying, especially if someone wants to resubmit the article for peer review after some cleanup, as I did with the Salt Lake City, Utah article. I archived the Old peer review and put a link to it on the talk page, then the next day, the peer review label had been changed to old peer review. I changed it back, and then someone else reverted thatThere should be some consideration for resubmissions. [[User:JonMoore|[jon] ]] [[user talk:JonMoore|[talk] ]] 17:51, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
::I don't really see the need for "OldPeerReview" labels. What does it mean, other than that one user once asked for outside advice. Any comments from Peer Review can be pasted into the article's talk page, User:Jguk 19:04, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Jguk, JonMoore, I think I adressed this two points in my proposal (see #2 and #3). Jguk, see also WegianWarrior's point above about the usefulness of the labels (if an article is on FAC, it can be relevant to know that it has been on Peer Review before). User:Mark Dingemanse— User:Mark Dingemanse User Talk:Mark Dingemanse 22:10, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
:Mark, I saw your points, I just disagree with them. All the best, User:Jguk 22:21, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
==Delisting again again==
P. S. to "Delisting again" discussion above: I've removed the policy statement "In order to make peer review a more dynamic and valuable process, if you list a request for peer review and do not respond after a reasonable period such as a week to comments made here by reviewers, then the listing will also be removed", since it's clearly not current policy. [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Peer_review&diff=9837901&oldid=9837592] [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Peer_review&diff=9854673&oldid=9838352]. That's it from me, I don't need the frustration. I'll just go respond to FAC listings like everybody else. User:Bishonen | User talk:Bishonen 09:03, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
:I don't agree the solution is to remove that bit of policy, but instead to make sure we have agreement to follow it. I believe everyone agrees PR needs some help, and that is one of the ways to make it more dynamic. I'm sorry I have not done much in implementing the points in the above discussions on this issue, but I have just been busy with real life. I will do what I can, but please don't remove that bit of policy without consensus to do it. - User:Taxman 14:46, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)
::My edit to Template:PR-instructions is just as easy to revert as my edits to Wikipedia:Peer review were. Roll 'em all back, I have no objection. User:Bishonen | User talk:Bishonen 15:03, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
:::I don't believe in reverts unless the edit is blatantly worse than without it such as vandalism. Since your view is open to debate and agreement by others I prefer to discuss first. That is basically what the revert policy says and if people actually followed that there would be a lot less discord on Wikipedia. In any case, with your assent I will replace the removed policy bits, and remove again the listings that have no response from the lister after at least a week, as the policy says. - User:Taxman 19:04, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)
==Trimming the instructions and trimming the list==
I suggest that peer review instructions at the top of the page should aim to be as concise as those for FAC (which only stay that way because Raul keeps ruthlessly trimming them). The huge "Ways to fix a page" infobox alone makes that impossible. We should get rid of it. I would also like to remove the "Featured article tools" box, as peer review doesn't urgently need links to for instance "Featured article removal candidates" or "Today's featured article". It does need links to for instance WP:FAC and to "Featured article criteria", but these are already in the "Path to a featured article" box, which I propose we keep.
I agree with Taxman above (under "Delisting again") that "Policy" would be better on a separate page, WP:PR/Policy, with a link to it. If it were, it could be fuller than now, without weighting down the top of the peer review page.
Policy changes: I hope we may be approaching consensus for removing not merely Featured articles but also Featured article candidates from the list, compare Ta Bu Shi Da Yu's most recent emendation of the "Important notice". This notice is at the moment somewhat at odds with the stated "Policy", and I suggest we produce a fit by emending the policy.
I also suggest the policy should explicitly encourage users to perform these removals themselves, rather than stating a little mysteriously that stale listings "will be removed" (especially since latterly they haven't been). Compare my original uncertainty about what I was/wasn't allowed to do in the way of removing listings, expressed in my first post above! ("Delisting again") It's not good for morale to leave such areas of doubt. But please note that if we encourage everybody to do it, we also need to have cautions about checking whether a lister has really been ignoring comments, since there are other conceivable ways of responding to comments than by replying on peer review. (Instruction creep, but then that's why the policy needs to be on a separate page.)
Please help edit the instructions! There's not a lot of traffic on this talk page, so I'm not planning to wait for a huge amount of input to my suggestions. If there are no protests and nobody else does any editing, I will edit the instructions, as outlined, tomorrow--well, in 24+ hours. Please don't flip if you see those changes before you see these suggestions! I'll be quite happy to revert them all. User:Bishonen | User talk:Bishonen 08:55, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
:This is not a protest :). Glad you're back at PR, I support your plans. User:Mark Dingemanse— User:Mark Dingemanse User Talk:Mark Dingemanse 09:32, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
:Go for it. What you said above is more or less inline with the previous consensus on the topic. Any disagreements can be handled by tweeking after the major changes have been done. That way we can get it done and not waste time, but still make most people happy. - User:Taxman 15:12, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)
:I also say go for it :-) I'm happy to have things clarified! Incidently, glad to see you back on Peer review again! - User:Ta bu shi da yu 03:54, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
::Thanks, guys, it's done. Tweak away. User:Bishonen | User talk:Bishonen 09:08, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
:::Good work :-) User:Ta bu shi da yu 09:25, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
::::Thanks! It's a tiny deal, but what was the point of moving that bit of text from the template to the page? The disadvantage is that it makes the "Purge cache" link and the "shortcut" thing harder to find, and, well, kind of uglier. (Compare WP:FAC, I was following that exactly.) I don't exactly see the advantage. But that could be me, I'm kind of hazy about the point of having a template at all. User:Bishonen | User talk:Bishonen 11:59, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
:::::Ta bu? I was asking you. User:Bishonen | User talk:Bishonen 00:16, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
::::::Sorry Bish, didn't see the question. I'm not fussed where it goes! I just want a lead section on the page, that's all. It doesn't matter technically where the purge link goes. - User:Ta bu shi da yu 06:33, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
:::::::I'm thinking maybe you had a cache issue, because the lead was there all along. I'll try changing it back and be sure to purge the server cache when I get back from work, gotta go now. User:Bishonen | User talk:Bishonen 06:42, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
===P.S. Trimming the oldpeerreview tag===
The oldpeerreview tag didn't fully cover the new policy, so I've edited it to read:
:''Wikipedia:Peer review/ has been archived. Either the original submitter withdrew it, or it was classed as an Wikipedia:Peer review/Request removal policy. [{{localurl:|action=edit}} Edit this article] in any way you see fit to make it better, as the reviewers may still be watching.'' User:Bishonen | User talk:Bishonen 16:27, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
== WTF? ==
As a long time maintainer of this page, it's taken me a while to track down who got rid of the peer review instructions template! But, it appears that it was User:119. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Peer_review&diff=prev&oldid=11008790]. I'm putting our instructions ''back''. - User:Ta bu shi da yu 08:08, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
:This is not your page and I am not a vandal. You have given no justification for maintaining 'your' version. Why? Simply saying "I'm putting our instructions ''back''" as though you were gatekeeper and any change is bad is ridiculous. User:119 08:36, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
::"Your"? Why don't you ''read'' what I wrote? It's ''our''. SEVERAL editors have been working out the instructions. If you want to know where the justification is for maintain this version, why don't you read the rest of the talk page? Rant out. - User:Ta bu shi da yu 10:17, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
::You are not a vandal, that's for sure. But Wikipedia is a collaborative project. Did you consider announcing your plans here first and talking them through with other editors? If you read the Talk page, you will find that it has cost quite some thought and energy to make the instructions into what they were before you pruned them. User:Mark Dingemanse— User:Mark Dingemanse User Talk:Mark Dingemanse 09:55, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
:::Yep. That's my point. You'll have to excuse my annoyance, but both Bishonen and myself have spent quite a bit of time on this page, and to have 119 come and just take away the peer review instructions like he did is quite a) insulting and b) rude. You'll notice this talk page had lots of discussion about the instructions. It took us a long time to get to where we were on this page. - User:Ta bu shi da yu 10:15, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
==Added: a little instruction creep==
I've added this sentence to the "How to make a request" section in the template: ''The best way to get lots of reviews is to reply promptly and appreciatively on this page to the comments you do get''. Apologies for the instruction creep, but all posters want lots of reviews, and this simple tip does work. Some have figured it out (User:Worldtraveller comes to mind) and nearly always get good response, others haven't, and are left sadly wondering why comment on their listing peters out so soon. All we need now is a tip for posters who never get that crucial first response. --User:Bishonen | User talk:Bishonen 10:34, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)
== Question ==
How long does a Peer Review last? Thanks. User:Zscout370 User_talk:Zscout370 19:43, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
*It varies, but generally a request is archived after it is one month old or the associated article has been submitted to FAC. Other things that can cause an article to be archived early are listed at Wikipedia:Peer review/Request removal policy. --''User: Allen3'' User talk:Allen3 22:33, May 16, 2005 (UTC)
== Looking good==
I remember not so long ago when many review requests here had no responce at all. Now, every single one has at least one comment. Finally it seems this page is getting enough attention to function :) Good, let's keep it up and review more :) --User:Piotrus User_talk:Piotrus 18:19, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:This section does seem to attract a number of postings for pages that are clearly not of near-Featured-standard quality. Perhaps a template would be useful that could direct people to the right place? For example:
:User:RJHall 18:21, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
::I do not believe the primary issue is the quality of the articles that are being submitted. While some articles are clearly closer to Featured-status than others, any submitter that is truly looking for feedback on ways to improve their article should be supported. The problem I see is that some requests may be reasonably interpreted as requests for something other than feedback. The first bullet of Wikipedia:Peer review/Request removal policy states "''Requests that aren't appropriate for peer review, for instance requests for help in containing vandalism, resolving an edit war, or detecting a copyvio, should be removed promptly, in the interest of the requester, since he/she is unlikely to get adequate response to them here.''" I would suggest the template be aimed at these requests and not at articles that just need a little more TLC than others. --''User: Allen3'' User talk:Allen3 19:23, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)
:::Agree with everything Allen3 just wrote, and we also get way too template happy around here. Instead of adding a template, why not just move the articles that the guidelines say to move and leave a note on the nominator's talk page. Now make sure you're doing it for the right ones, but just do the work, don't create meta talk. I also have to agree, peer review is a ''much'' more productive place now. The only thing we could do more of is warning nominators that haven't replied to and/or carried out comments that are made on their articles in a while, and then removing the ones with no response from the nominators. The articles that get the most comments and are the most productive are the ones where the nominators are active. I think removing even more of the inactive one's would make the rest more productive and they would all get more comments. - User:Taxman User talk:Taxman 20:05, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)
#REDIRECT Template:Peerreview
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Peer Review
#redirect Wikipedia:Peer review
Peer Review
#REDIRECT Peer_review
Peer review
:This article refers to the scholarly process of screening papers. For the Wikipedia process of improving articles, see Wikipedia:Peer review. Peer review (known as refereeing in some academic fields) is a Scholarly method process used in the publication of manuscripts and in the awarding of funding for research. Publishers and funding agencies use peer review to select and to screen submissions. The process also forces authors to meet the standards of their discipline. Publications and awards that have not undergone peer review are likely to be regarded with suspicion by scholars and professionals in many fields. [[Image:ScientificReview.jpg|thumbnail|300px|A reviewer at the National Institutes of Health evaluates a grant proposal.]] ==Reasons for peer review== A rationale for peer review is that it is rare for an individual author or research team to spot every mistake or flaw in a complicated piece of work. This is not because deficiencies represent needles in a haystack, but because in a new and perhaps eclectic intellectual product, an opportunity for improvement may stand out only to someone with special expertise or experience. Therefore showing work to others increases the probability that weaknesses will be identified, and with advice and encouragement, fixed. The anonymity and independence of reviewers is intended to foster unvarnished criticism and discourage cronyism in funding and publication decisions. == How it works == Peer review subjects an author's work or ideas to the scrutiny of one or more others who are experts in the field. These referees each return an evaluation of the work, including suggestions for improvement, to an editor or other intermediary (typically, most of the referees' comments are eventually seen by the author as well). Evaluations usually include an explicit recommendation of what to do with the manuscript or proposal, often chosen from a menu provided by the journal or funding agency. Most recommendations are along the lines of the following: * to unconditionally accept the manuscript or proposal, * to accept it in the event that its authors improve it in certain ways, * to reject it, but encourage revision and invite resubmission * to reject it outright. During this process, the role of the referees is advisory, and the editor is under no formal obligation to accept the opinions of the referees. Furthermore, in scientific publication, the referees do not act as a group, do not communicate with each other, and typically are not aware of each other's identities. There is usually no requirement that the referees achieve consensus. Thus the group dynamics is substantially different from that of a jury. In situations where the referees disagree about the quality of a work, there are a number of strategies for reaching a decision. Traditionally reviewers would remain anonymous to the authors, but this is slowly changing. In some academic fields most journals now offer the reviewer the option of remaining anonymous or not; papers sometimes contain, in the acknowledgments section, thanks to (named) referees who helped improve the paper. At a journal or book publisher, the task of picking reviewers typically falls to an editor. When a manuscript arrives, an editor solicits reviews from scholars or other experts who may or may not have already expressed a willingness to referee for that journal or book division. Granting agencies typically recruit a panel or committee of reviewers in advance of the arrival of applications. In some disciplines, such as computer science, there exist refereed venues (such as conferences and workshops). To be admitted to speak, scientists must submit a scientific paper (generally short, often 15 pages or less) in advance. This paper is reviewed by a "program committee" (the equivalent of an editorial board), who generally requests inputs from referees. The hard deadlines set by the conferences tend to limit the options to either accept or reject the paper. Typically referees are not selected from among the authors' close colleagues, relatives, or friends. Referees are supposed to inform the editor of any conflict of interests that might arise. Journals or individual editors often invite a manuscript's authors to name people whom they consider qualified to referee their work. Authors are sometimes also invited to name natural candidates who should be ''disqualified'', in which case they may be asked to provide justification (typically expressed in terms of conflict of interest). Editors solicit author input in selecting referees because academia writing typically is very specialized. Editors often oversee many specialties, and may not be experts in any of them, since editors may be full time professionals with no time for scholarly method. But after an editor selects referees from the pool of candidates, the editor typically is obliged not to disclose the referees' identities to the authors, and in scientific journals, to each other. Policies on such matters differ between academic disciplines. Scientific journals observe this convention universally. The two or three chosen referees report their evaluation of the article and suggestions for improvement to the editor. The editor then relays the bulk of these comments to the author (some comments may be designated as confidential to the editor), meanwhile basing on them his or her decision whether to publish the manuscript. When an editor receives very positive and very negative reviews for the same manuscript, the editor often will solicit one or more additional reviews as a tie-breaker. As another strategy in the case of ties, editors may invite authors to reply to a referee's criticisms and permit a compelling rebuttal to break the tie. If an editor does not feel confident to weigh the persuasiveness of a rebuttal, the editor may solicit a response from the referee who made the original criticism. In rare instances, an editor will convey communications back and forth between authors and a referee, in effect allowing them to debate a point. Even in these cases, however, editors do not allow referees to confer with each other, and the goal of the process is explicitly not to reach consensus or to convince anyone to change their opinions. Some medical journals, however, (usually following the open access model) have begun posting on the Internet the pre-publication history of each individual article, from the original submission to reviewers' reports, authors' comments, and revised manuscripts. After reviewing and resolving any potential ties, there may be one of three possible outcomes for the article. The two simplest are outright rejection and unconditional acceptance. In most cases, the authors may be given a chance to revise, with or without specific recommendations or requirements from the reviewers. == Recruiting referees == Recruiting referees is a political art, because referees are not paid, and reviewing takes time away from the referee's main activities, such as his or her own research. To the would-be recruiter's advantage, most potential referees are authors themselves, or at least readers, who know that the publication system requires that experts donate their time. Editors are at an especial advantage in recruiting a scholar when they have overseen the publication of his or her work, or if the scholar is one who hopes to submit manuscripts to that editor's publication in the future. Granting agencies, similarly, tend to seek referees among their present or former grantees. Serving as a referee can even be a condition of a grant, or professional association membership. Another difficulty that peer-review organizers face is that, with respect to some manuscripts or proposals, there may be few scholars who truly qualify as experts. Such a circumstance often frustrates the goals of reviewer anonymity and the avoidance of conflicts of interest. It also increases the chances that an organizer will not be able to recruit true experts – people who have themselves done work like that under review, and who can read between the lines. Low-prestige journals and granting agencies that award little money are especially handicapped with regard to recruiting experts. Finally, anonymity adds to the difficulty in finding reviewers in another way. In scientific circles, credit and reputation are important, and while being a referee for a prestigious journal is considered an honor, the anonymity restrictions make it impossible to publicly state that one was a referee for a particular article. However, credit and reputation are principally established by publications, not by refereeing; and in some fields refereeing may not be anonymous. == Different styles of review == Peer review can be ''rigorous'', in terms of the skill brought to bear, without being highly ''stringent''. An agency may be flush with money to give away, for example, or a journal may have few impressive manuscripts to choose from, so there may be no use to being picky. Conversely, when either funds or publication space is limited, peer review may be used to select an extremely small number of proposals or manuscripts. Often the decision of what counts as "good enough" falls entirely to the editor or organizer of the review. In other cases, referees will each be asked to make the call, with only general guidance from the coordinator on what stringency to apply. Some journals such as ''Science (journal)'', ''Nature (journal)'', and ''Physical Review'' have extremely stringent standards for publication, and will reject papers which are of good quality scientific work that they feel are not breakthroughs in the field. Others such as the ''Astrophysical Journal'' use peer review primarily to filter out obvious mistakes and incompetence. Different publication rates reflect these different criteria: ''Nature'' publishes about 5 percent of received papers, while ''Astrophysical Journal'' publishes about 70 percent. The different publication rates are also reflected in the size of the journals. Screening by peers may be more or less laissez-faire depending on the discipline. Physicists, for example, tend to think that decisions about the worthiness of an article are best left to the marketplace. Yet even within such a culture peer review serves to ensure high standards in what is published. Outright errors are detected and authors receive both edits and suggestions. To preserve the integrity of the peer-review process, submitting authors are not informed of who reviews their papers; sometimes, they might not even know the identity of the associate editor who is responsible for the paper. In many cases, alternatively called "blind" or "double-blind" review, the identity of the authors is concealed from the reviewers, lest the knowledge of authorship bias their review; in such cases, however, the associate editor responsible for the paper does know who the author is. Sometimes the scenario where the reviewers do know who the authors are is called "single-blind" to distinguish it from the "double-blind" process. In double-blind review, the authors are required to remove any reference that may point to them as the authors of the paper. While the anonymity of reviewers is almost universally preserved, double-blind review (where authors are also anonymous to reviewers) is not always employed. Critics of the double-blind process point out that, despite the extra editorial effort to ensure anonymity, the process often fails to do so, since certain approaches, methods, notations, etc., may point to a certain group of people in a research stream, and even to a particular person. Proponents of the single-blind process argue that if the reviewers of a paper are unknown to each other, the associate editor responsible for the paper can easily verify the objectivity of the reviews. Double-blind review is thus strongly dependent upon the goodwill of the participants. == Criticisms of peer review == One of the most common complaints about the peer review process is that it is slow, and that it typically takes several months or even several years in some fields for a submitted paper to appear in print. In practice, much of the communication about new results in some fields such as astronomy no longer takes place through peer reviewed papers, but rather through preprints submitted onto electronic servers such as ArXiv.org_e-print_archive. In addition, some Science and technology studies argue that peer review makes the ability to publish susceptible to control by elites and to personal jealousy. Reviewers tend to be especially critical of conclusions that contradict their own views, and lenient towards those that accord with them. At the same time, elite scientists are more likely than less established ones to be sought out as referees, particularly by high-prestige journals or publishers. As a result, it has been argued, ideas that harmonize with the elite's are more likely to see print and to appear in premier journals than are iconoclastic or revolutionary ones, which accords with Thomas Kuhn's well-known observations regarding scientific revolutions. However, others have pointed out that there is a very large number of scientific journals in which one can publish, making control of information difficult. In addition, the decision-making process of peer review, in which each referee gives his opinions separately and without consultation with the other members, is intended to mitigate some of these problems. == History of peer review == Peer review has been a touchstone of modern scientific methodology apparently only since in the middle of the twentieth century.[http://www.designinference.com/documents/05.02.resp_to_wein.htm] Before then, its application was lax. For example, Albert Einstein's revolutionary "Annus Mirabilis" papers in the 1905 issue of ''Annalen der Physik'' were not peer-reviewed. The journal's editor in chief (and father of quantum theory), Max Planck, recognized the virtue of publishing such outlandish ideas and simply had the papers published; none of the papers were sent to reviewers. The decision to publish was made exclusively by either the editor in chief, or the co-editor Wilhelm Wien—both certainly ‘peers’ (who were later to win the Nobel prize in physics), but this does not meet the definition of "peer review" as it is currently understood. At the time there was a policy that allowed authors much latitude after their first publication. In a recent editorial in Nature, it was stated that "in journals in those days, the burden of proof was generally on the opponents rather than the proponents of new ideas." == Famous papers which were not peer-reviewed == Because of its relatively recent status as a fixture in the scientific enterprise, many of the major breakthroughs in the history of science ironically were published without having undergone peer review. However, even after peer review had become common practice, some famous papers have been published without review. These include: # Publication of James D. Watson and Francis Crick 1951 paper on the structure of DNA in ''Nature (journal)''. This paper was not sent out for peer review. John Maddox stated that “the Watson and Crick paper was not peer-reviewed by ''Nature''... the paper could not have been refereed: its correctness is self-evident. No referee working in the field (Linus Pauling?) could have kept his mouth shut once he saw the structure” (Nature 426:119 (2003)). The editors accepted the paper upon receipt of a “Publish” covering letter from influential physicist William Lawrence Bragg. == Peer review and fraud == Peer review, in scientific journals, assumes that the article reviewed has been honestly written, and the process is not designed to detect fraud. The reviewers usually do not have full access to the data from which the paper has been written and some elements have to be taken on trust (except perhaps in subjects such as mathematics). The number and proportion of articles which are detected as fraudulent at review stage is unknown. Some instances of outright scientific fraud and scientific misconduct have got through review and were detected only after other groups tried and failed to replicate the published results. An example is the case of Jan Hendrik Schön, in which a total of fifteen papers were accepted for publication in the top ranked journals ''Nature (journal)'' and ''Science (journal)'' following the usual peer review process. All fifteen were found to be fraudulent and were subsequently withdrawn. The fraud was eventually detected, not by peer review, but after publication when other groups tried and failed to reproduce the results of the paper. An example of what can happen within academic publications without peer-review is that of New York University Physics Professor Alan Sokal's publication of [http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/transgress_v2/transgress_v2_singlefile.html ''Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity''] in the journal [http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/social_text/ ''Social Text'']. The submission for publication by Sokal was a hoax known as the Sokal Affair. == Peer review and software development == A variety of kinds of peer review are used in various software development processes, including more formal and rigorous approaches termed Software inspection. In the open source movement, something like peer review has taken place in the engineering and evaluation of computer software. In this context, the rationale for peer review has its equivalent in Linus's law, often phrased: "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow," meaning "If there are enough reviewers, all problems are easy to solve." Eric S. Raymond has written influentially about peer review in software development, for example in the essay ''The Cathedral and the Bazaar.'' == See also == *Code review *Publication bias *Scholarly method *Sokal affair * ==External links== * [http://www.aacu.org/peerreview/about.cfm Magazine “Peer Review”] * [http://www.senseaboutscience.org.uk/PDF/peerReview.pdf Peer review and the acceptance of new scientific ideas] (''Warning:'' 469 kilobyte Portable Document Format) * [http://www.jpgmonline.com/article.asp?issn=0022-3859;year=2001;volume=47;issue=3;spage=210;epage=4;aulast=Gitanjali Peer review -- process, perspectives and the path ahead] * [http://www.allmedmd.com AllMed Healthcare Medical Peer Review] * [http://peerreview.blogs.com/peer_review/ Blog “PEER Review”] Scientific method
Peer review
Talk:Peer review/Archive 1 ---- That which this article, and apparently the general public, calls "peer review", is known in mathematics and statistics as "refereeing". If not for TV news broadcasts and other media addressed to the hoi polloi, I would never have heard the term "peer review". Persons whom editors of scholarly journals ask to review submitted papers are "referees". It is certainly plausible that in other fields they call it something else, but I wonder if some specificity is in order here: what are the fields in which it is called "peer review"? User:Michael Hardy 18:13 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC) :My understanding is that the two phrases are used in complementary ways -- a journal or an article may be called either refereed or peer-reviewed; the peer-review process involves one or more referees (that is, the reviewers are always called referees in my experience, but the process is more often called "peer review"). That said, I strongly take issue with the accuracy of this article. It is far from certain that peer-review leads to increased quality of articles; it certainly does promote conformity to general standards. And Wikipedia is most definitely not peer-reviewed in the academic sense; the whole point of Wikipedia is that anyone can be a referee, including people with widely varying levels of education in very diffeent fields. User:Slrubenstein ::Agreed. In literature, as authors go in and out of vogue, many leave in their wake a body of books and peer-reviewed journals by and for fans of the authors. These books and journals are considered not to be authoritative by academics even though they are peer-reviewed because of the non-critical nature of the work. They reflect the qualities appreciated by the author's admirers, but often gloss over important or embarassing information about the author. --User:Modemx 19:59, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC) You haven't said what field you're in. I have not heard of "peer review" in mathematics, but I've refereed some papers and had my own refereed. It's called "refereeing", not "peer review". But, if I can believe what I keep hearing, in ''some'' fields it's called "peer review". So my question is: which ones? User:Michael Hardy 23:24 Mar 1, 2003 (UTC) : Computer Science. See any Call for Papers from [http://www.computer.org/ IEEE Computer society] and [http://www.acm.org/ Association for Computer Machinery]. --- ejrrjs Also, what about the anonymity issue? In mathematics, referees or usually anonymous, i.e., papers' authors don't know who the referees are, although they read the referees' reports, but referees generally ''do'' know who the authors are. I have heard that in some fields, they don't. Which ones? Maybe biology? User:Michael Hardy 23:26 Mar 1, 2003 (UTC) :This notion may be misunderstood, and thus may upset people, but I do not feel math is a science, it is more like a language, one that humans discovered and one that is self-consistent and extraordinarily useful while practicing science. Peer review would be useless in mathematics, as the proof is on the page, so to speak. There is no need to consult history (or "accepted" notions, which peer review does compare "new" ideas to as a basis for their validity) when "refereeing" a statistics or mathematics paper. - User:Plautus satire 14:30, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC) ::I suspect that you do not know much about the workings of the mathematical community. First, it's inexact to state that the "proof is on the page". Real-life mathematical proofs are not machine-checkable (excluding fringe projects like Mizar) and generally require considerable expertise to be understood. Very subtle mistakes can arise; the author may have believed that some point should be skipped because it was "easy"; he may have made a definition that was subtly inconsistent; etc... For instance, checking whether Andrew Wiles' proof of Fermat's last theorem is correct is a job for only a few other high level mathematicians. ::Plautus satire's comments are nonsense. I have refereed papers for five mathematics journals, and my published papers have been refereed (and some unpublished ones that I submitted). Obviously history is consulted; obviously proof-checking is ''not'' the main point of refereeing; obviously novel ideas are examined in the context of accepted notions. To say that mathematics is not a science but a "language" ignores the fact that hundreds of journals are devoted to publishing new discoveries in mathematics. Obviously in judging publication-worthiness one considers how new discoveries may be relevant to potential future research; one considers esthetics (which for most mathematicians is the main motive for doing mathematics or for learning mathematics). Where did you get this loony idea that there is no need to consult history? Do you not see sections on how a new discovery fits into the historical development of the subject in many research papers in mathematics? User:Michael Hardy 22:33, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC) ::Second, there's an issue that many philosopher and sociologists that discuss science neglect: refereeing is not only about gauging whether a paper is scientifically correct, but also of gauging whether it's scientifically interesting. It's possible to write a whole paper of correct mathematics by writing 1=1, 2=2, 3=3... Yet, such a paper would be totally uninteresting, since it would not advance science, by saying evidences (trivial tautologies). One may for instance judge that a paper does not warrant publication in a major journal if it's about some gratuitous mathematical theory. Such judgment is of course somewhat subjective. User:David.Monniaux 19:20, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC) ::A common argument I've had before with my students. My response is that people should actually look in a peer-reviewed journal of mathematics and then try to argue why math isn't a science. Math is "the mother of all sciences." --User:Modemx 20:43, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC) == Questionable para from fraud section == (User:William M. Connolley 08:37, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)) I've moved this here for discussion: : While fraud obviously has severe negative consequences for the author of a paper, there are generally no adverse consequences to either the editor or the reviewers for recommending publication of a fraudulent paper, as detecting fraud is not a goal of the process, and the editors and reviewers almost never have enough information to detect outright fraud. Who says that there are no consequences for editors (or reviewers - less sure). Quite likely, the editors get a black mark in their career record - what this text means probably is that nothing about that appears in the newspapers? Hi William. Fair point...when Nature withdrew the Schon papers, the editorial said Nature this week finds itself in the unenviable (and unprecedented) position of formally retracting seven papers (see page 92). All share the same first author, Jan Hendrik Schön (see Nature 419, 417; 2002); in fact, this represents the entire body of work published by Schön in this journal. which *does* look like severe negative consequences on the Journal, if not the Editor...nevertheless, the referees (being anonymous and voluntary, as much as anything) do escape censure....WMMV. best User:Robinh 10:23, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC) Hi again. Another gem from Nature Editorial, 3 Oct 2002: In some media reports, journalists and a few scientists who are unconnected with the Schön investigations have taken the opportunity to make potentially damaging assertions about journals, including Nature: that in order to compete or to publish exciting results, journals will cut corners in peer review, overrule hostile reviewers or select sympathetic ones. We at Nature unequivocally reject such charges. The publication history and files of these particular papers and the editorial policies and interests of Nature are completely at odds with these assertions. Nature has nothing to gain by the pursuit of glamour at the expense of scientific quality, considering, not least, the criticisms, corrections and retractions we would then habitually be forced to publish. There is more than enough rock-solid and splendid science to publish. Furthermore, it is a strict policy of Nature that our Letters and Articles are selected for their outstanding scientific impact, sometimes also taking into account relevance to public policy issues, but never simply because the results will make headlines. User:Robinh 13:16, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC) == Image == I added a picture from the [http://www.csr.nih.gov/ Center for Scientific Review webpage]. However, since I don't have a decent image editing program handy, the orginal that I uploaded is very big and probably should be edited for size. I'm pretty sure it's public domain, since it's from the NIH, a Federal government organization. There are several other images on the same webpage, under "images of peer review" (handy, huh?). User:Sayeth 19:43, Aug 4, 2004 (UTC) ==Grammar question== ''"A chief rationale for peer review is that rarely is just one person, or one closely working group, able to spot every mistake or weakness ..."'' -- is that correct english? It seems to me that the "is" and "able" should be together, but english is not my native language. Could somebody enlighten me? -- User:Stw (User talk:Stw 09:52, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC) :I think this phenomenon is referred to as inversion (grammar). Inversion is the normal word order in questions (Must they feed the animals?) and can also be used after a "negative", restrictive adverb or phrase (Under no circumstances must they feed the animals. Never before have I heard such nonsense. Rarely do they eat meat. etc.) :However, you can altogether avoid this construction by not putting the adverb at the beginning of the sentence. -- Any good grammar will have more details. All the best, User:KF 10:44, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC) ==Peer Review used to suppress opposing views== Perhaps we should mention that some scholars have charged that in environmental science, billions of dollars per year are subsidizing one viewpoint, i.e., the theory of anthropogenic global warming -- and that this financial pressure may be sufficient to corrupt the peer review process. Thus, perfectly valid results may then be dismissed from consideration on the grounds that they did not pass peer review. However, failing peer review is not proof that a paper has errors; only that the referees chosen to review it, diasagreed with it. This is science by voting, which is a self-contradiction. The only reliable criterion for the worthiness of an idea is whether others who try earnestly to verify it are able to do so. Science is replete with examples of important and valuable new ideas which were suppressed by the establishment (germ theory of disease, for example), and we should not exalt peer review as being immune to this type of abuse. --User:Ed Poor 14:59, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC) :Furthermore, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence," said Carl Sagan[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/aliens/carlsagan.html]. If someone comes out with evidence to support an unpopular hypothesis (for example, "life exists on Mars" in 1975), they have to prove it beyond refute before it can even be considered seriously. -- User:Ke4roh 16:04, Aug 15, 2004 (UTC) :Nonsense, if I submit the idea that it is possible to get to the moon by jumping on a pogo stick will the only criterion for "worthiness" be if several other scientists "try earnestly to verify it"? No, the worthlessness of some ideas are self-evident. The scientific process can be far more easily corrupted by, for example, the deep pockets of Washington think tanks. --User:Deglr6328 18:17, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC) :For an idea to be considered scientifically valid it also must be repeatable. For example, Einstein supported his general theory of relativity with a simply replicated experiment that proved the existence of quantum states of energy. "The establishment" initially rejected his findings because it was from someone who was "just a patent clerk." It was the repeatability of his experiment that helped put Einstein's ideas in the firmament of scientifically valid ideas. Contrast that with the researchers who railed against "the establishment" when their claims of being able to experimentally mass produce Fullerines (a.k.a. "Bucky Balls") were rejected because lack of repeatability. When someone actually found the process to mass produce Fullerines, some of those researchers were found out to simply be liars with economic rather than scientific motivations. Just because someone presents an arguably valid alternate theory about a matter of scientific controversy doesn't mean that it should be treated with equal weight to established theories because of "fairness." Fairness to the truth demands a body of repeatable results that gains the adherence of the scientific community and the standards should be high because the costs of bad science are high. --User:Modemx 20:28, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC) == The picture == (User:William M. Connolley 09:51, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)) The picture at the start of this article doesn't look right to me. I don't think the chap is evaluating (in the sense of peer review) the proposals - he looks more like he is checking a pile of submitted proposals that all the boxes have been filled in. :You could be right - he/she (I can't really tell) is looking over the front page of what looks like a NRSA application. The front page has stuff like name, institution, and proposal title. However, the following pages contain the grant proposal, which is peer reveiwed. From the picture, the person looking at the grant could be just checking to make sure that boxes are filled in or he/she could be starting to read the entire grant, begining at the front page with the applicant's information. As I stated above, I got the picture from the [http://www.csr.nih.gov/ Center for Scientific Review webpage]. Looking over all the pictures they had there, I decided that this was probably best suited to the article, since many of the other pictures depicted reviewers debating grant proposals, which would be confusing to people reading about how peer review for journal articles is done anonymously. You're welcome to try to find another picture that better depicts peer review or just change the caption. Personally, I think this picture is okay, since it could be interpeted as someone starting to read a grant, but improvement is always welcome. User:Sayeth 15:44, Aug 18, 2004 (UTC) ==Lack of references== Hi, this page no longer meets all of the Wikipedia:What is a featured article. Specifically it has no references, or at least any that are Wikipedia:Cite sources. Please help add some references, use them to improve the article and cite them. Thanks - User:Taxman 01:19, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC) == Spoken? == (User:William M. Connolley 22:50, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)) The new "spoken" thing doesn't work for me... when I click on "listen to this article" I get back to the text article again. Is something broken? ==Request for references== Hi, I am working to encourage implementation of the goals of the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy. Part of that is to make sure articles Wikipedia:Cite sources. This is particularly important for featured articles, since they are a prominent part of Wikipedia, and even moreso for an article like this one. The Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check has more information. Thank you, and please [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Taxman&action=edit§ion=new leave me a message] when you have added a few references to the article. - User:Taxman 19:18, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)
Peer review
''[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia:Peer_review&action=purge Purge server cache]'' This page is for nearly Featured-standard articles that need the final checking by peers before being nominated as Wikipedia:Featured article candidates. Requests for peer review are listed here to expose articles to closer scrutiny than they might otherwise receive. See Wikipedia:Style and How-to Directory for advice on writing Wikipedia:How to write a great article. Or look at the discussion of Wikipedia:The perfect article and try to reach as close to as many of those ideals as possible. If an article needs extensive work, please list it on Wikipedia:Pages needing attention, Wikipedia:Requests for expansion or Wikipedia:Cleanup. Please list article content disputes on Wikipedia:Requests for comment rather than here. Note: Peer review is the process of review by peers and usually implies a group of authoritative reviewers that are equally familiar and expert in the subject. The process represented by this page is not formal peer review in that sense and articles that under go this process cannot be assumed to have greater authority than any other. __TOC__ ==Requests== ==Archives== *Wikipedia:Peer review/June 2005 (current) *Wikipedia:Peer review/May 2005 *Wikipedia:Peer review/April 2005 *Wikipedia:Peer review/March 2005 *Wikipedia:Peer review/February 2005 *Wikipedia:Peer review/January 2005 *Wikipedia:Peer review/December 2004 *Wikipedia:Peer review/Archive 3 *Wikipedia:Peer review/Archive 2 *Wikipedia:Peer review/Archive 1 Editorial validation simple:Peer Review
Peer review
== Miscellaneous == I have just created Wikipedia:Requests for comments as a forum for announcing any matters that need commentary by other people. I've made such requests pretty frequently, and thought it might be helpful to have a page like this. Comments? -- User:Wapcaplet 13:12 17 Jul 2003 (UTC) : How is this different from Wikipedia:Village pump? Way more people watch that page. I admit I RFC too, but I think the solution is to clean the pump more often. -- User:Merphant 05:12 22 Jul 2003 (UTC) :: ... except that, with the ridiculous imposition on the length of the Pump due to dilapedated browsers, as the number of people working on the Wikipedia grows, so do the number of comments and so on that require attention; stratifying different sorts of comments into different sections seems much more sensible, extendable, and flexable, IMHO. :: User:Jdforrester 07:08 22 Jul 2003 (UTC) :::I've started a Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wikidemia on the realtime version of the Village Pump. see it Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wikidemia/WikipediaIRC User:Quinobi 20:15, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC) ---- I propose a simple solution: First, move this page to wikipedia:peer review. It's a cool name, and it'll annoy wikipedia:responses who claim that Wikipedia doesn't have peer review. wikipedia:peer review is for saying "Hey, I wrote this cool entry (or set of entries) on X - what do you folks think?" - great for newbies and folks like that. wikipedia:village pump is for everything else. User:MyRedDice 12:38, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC) :Sounds good to me -- especially the 'annoying our doubters' part :-). :User:Jdforrester 13:38, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC) :Done and done. Though, I am not sure why this talk page didn't get moved along with it... I swear I checked the "move talk page too" box. Good to see someone besides me finally using this page! :-) -- User:Wapcaplet 18:14, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC) :: Fixed. I should add something to wikipedia:move. User:MyRedDice 19:34, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC) ---- I agree completely with Wapcaplet suggestion. It's a very nice way of reducing Village Pump size and foccusing atention on this special kind of request. In fact, this page appeared just in time! I already posted a proposal for wiki peer demoliting. I also like the idea of the peer review page. User:Muriel Gottrop 13:47, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC) ==Requesting feedback on an article== ''Moved from Wikipedia:Village pump/March 2003 archive 3 on Thursday, September 15th, 02003.'' Is there an "official" way of requesting feedback on an article (Nickel and Dimed)? Should I appeal to individual users, at the risk of annoying them, or is feedback subtly given through edits? Should I leave a message on the talk page and hope for a response or should I just leave a comment at the village pump :)? If feedback is rarely given (I would venture due to the ever-changing nature of articles), would someone mind making an exception and looking over the entry? I'm asking for two reasons, development in my writing (I'm a senior in high school) and for future reference as I would like to add similar entries on other books in my collection (after a quick reread of course :)). Thanks. -- User:Notheruser 03:16 Mar 19, 2003 (UTC) :There's no official way as far as I know. If you're aware of a specific problem with the article you can use Wikipedia:Pages needing attention, but that's not really appropriate in this case. My advice would be to ask your English teacher to review the article for you. Teachers are usually overjoyed when their students do extra work, and if you frame the question right, you'll probably get a lengthy response. Print out a hard copy. I guess your other option is one of the ones you suggested -- risk annoyance and suck up to a random contributor on their talk page. -- User:Tim Starling 05:08 Mar 20, 2003 (UTC) ::Thanks for the response. I think I'll try a teacher rather than risk annoying a user. I don't want to step on anybody's toes (not in my first month here, maybe later :) ) -- User:Notheruser 06:31 Mar 20, 2003 (UTC) General feed back for any article from : if you understand NPOV you won't go too far == Guidelines == Proposed Guideline # If you are listing a newly created page, leave a comment on the user talk page of the contributor so that he can participate in the discussion or atleast see that the page is being discussed. User:Hemanshu 09:24, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC) == Length of ''the Article for which'' this ''is the Talk'' page == This page is likely to get very long. I suggest a list format for this page and the actual discussion to take place at the Talk page of the article. So 2 links here... to the article and to its talk page. User:Hemanshu 09:26, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC) :Your proposal is actually part of the policy of this page, but many people (including me) have not been following it, either through ignorance or negligence. -User:Smack 22:10, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC) :Yep, there's a good reason I made up those original policies :-) Anyway, I've moved some of the lengthier stuff to the appropriate discussion areas; this page seems to be popular enough now that it will need periodic cleaning and archiving, just like the Village Pump. -- User:Wapcaplet 23:07, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC) ::Good point. I've added it to the list of Wikipedia:Wikipedia maintenance. User:Angelauser talk:Angela 13:11, Jan 11, 2004 (UTC) ---- == Lurid Message Box == The green message surrounded by the red dotted border is rather lurid and detracts from the page, IMO. Any objects if the message is demoted to a mere bold - a la the top of VfD? User:Pcb21 User_talk:Pcb21 10:01, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC) : Getting attention on the msg is more important that esthetics. Consider changing it if and when people demonstrate awareness of how to use the page. --User:Jerzy 08:09, 2004 Feb 6 (UTC) ::I couldn't stand the green any longer. Let's see how people use the page, which doesn't grow particularly quickly anyway. User:Pcb21 User_talk:Pcb21 19:55, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC) ==Reciprocal Reviews?== I had an idea to encourage more people to particpate, and have quicker turnover. What if we ask that people ''give'' one or two peer reviews to others before listing a page of their own for review? Nothing that needs to be enforced heavily or create more bureaucracy, just a different application of w:WikiLove. You'd just add another bullet point to your request for review, mentioning the articles you had commented on, to help motivate others to return the favor. Thoughts? User:CatherineMunro 19:44, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC) :That could work, provided people remember ones that they've given feedback on in the past. It may be best if it's strictly voluntary and informal. Perhaps just a simple suggestion towards the top of the page to "please consider giving some feedback on existing requests before posting a request of your own." I think I'll do that right now, in fact... -- User:Wapcaplet 20:06, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC) ==Cleanup?== Is there a policy regarding cleaning up the Peer Review page? The removal sections says posts can be removed "after they've been here a while." How long is "a while"? The page is getting lengthy and there's stuff dating to September. --User:Zandperl 18:46, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC) :Good point, though I know some of this stuff is still here because the desired feedback has not been received yet. Perhaps it'd be a good idea to check with the person who posted something before removing it from this page. An archive is probably not necessary, since past requests aren't likely to be of much interest. -- User:Wapcaplet 00:24, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC) :I've left messages for the posters of several of the oldest (pre-December) requests on their talk pages, asking them to come by and remove old requests if they have enough feedback. I think I'll make some alterations to the "Using this page" section for future cleanup, since the process of cleaning this page is going to be somewhat different than it is for others. -- User:Wapcaplet 23:29, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC) ==vs. Pages needing attention== What's the difference between this and Wikipedia:Pages needing attention? --User:Zandperl 14:23, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC) My impression was that Wikipedia:Pages needing attention is a place to list articles you find that need help whilst Wikipedia:Peer review is for your own articles when you want feedback. User:Angelauser talk:Angela 20:49, Apr 5, 2004 (UTC) Thanks, look like it's been cleared up a bit in the two pages' headers. I'll see if I can't make it even more obvious. :) --User:Zandperl 23:30, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC) ==Refactor by topic ?== The list of requests for peer review is rather long, and visitors may not take the time to read the full list to find an article they can contribute to. A classification of those requests (using sub-heading) would greatly help. Why not use the list of topics on the wikipedia main page as the classification principle ? (I'm not directly interested to update the page myself, but I guess anybody could; an "Other" category would capture all the requests that are not classified yet). User:Pcarbonn 20:48, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC) :I would go futher and suggest sub-pages for different disciplines, that way users would be more likely to add Peer review to their watchlists, for example, I'd watch "WP:Peer reviews/Biology", and "Peer review/United Kingdom", but not the whole peet review page.. --User:Steinsky 00:15, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC) ==Time limit to detect dead requests ?== I have reviewed the Wikipedia:Peer_review#Removing_requests_from_this_list policy, and I find it too weak: it fails when the requestor has left the wikipedia community (which I hope does not happen often...). As a result, the list of requests starts with what seems like dead requests, not an engaging thing for potential reviewers (like me) (on top of that, the list is very long, see topic above). So, we would need a way to detect dead requests. I think that only a time limit would do it. It could work like this: * any entry without a time stamp would be moved to the "dead request" area, with the time stamp of today * anybody could move an entry older than the stated time limit to the "dead request" section * the requestor would have to repost his entry to extend the time limit (he can do so before it is moved out, of course) The advantage is that a reviewer would have some kind of assurance that the requestor is still listening... Do you agree that there are some dead requests ? How should they be handled ? Do you agree that there should be a time limit ? What should it be ? One month ? Do you see a problem if I change the description of the peer review process accordingly ? User:Pcarbonn 21:00, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC) == Inconsistency == I've been scolded for not properly formatting my entry on this page, and I have a problem with that because: *The current entries are formatted in different ways *Virtually none of them conform to what it says at the top of the page: **It says to add a topic like this: "
Speaking of morale, it's bad for dynamics and discouraging for reviewers if there's no feedback to comments, compare right now Vermont, Eric W. Weisstein, Richard Blumenthal, French phonology and orthography, Municipality of Strathfield, History of the Strathfield area, Etty Hillesum, Autism, Korean Buddhism, and The Passion of the Christ (Hello, Ta Bu Shi Da Yu, several of those listings are yours), which in many cases also have not even been edited since receiving comments. Perhaps the instructions need to contain a more direct and upbeat exhortation to the requesters to please remember to watchlist the page when they've posted a request—something more concrete than the present claim that the listing will be removed if you haven't responded within a week. OK, even though I worry about instruction creep and having the top-of-the-page stuff grow so long that nobody'll read it, I've boldly added a short sentence about watchlisting in the “How to make a request” section. Dear reader, just take it out if you don't approve. I'd appreciate some response to my other points—Taxman, are you still there, or did you get tired of the one-man conversation ?--User:Bishonen | User talk:Bishonen 13:31, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC) :Ya, three of the current ones are mine. I have, however, since edited Municipality of Strathfield to try to resolve an objection. I'm not sure if it's FAC worthy yet, however. - User:Ta bu shi da yu 09:26, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC) :I concur fully with all of your points. One thing I experienced myself is the fact that too much entries scarcely get comments. In the past, I've had this with Gbe languages (was listed two weeks without getting one comment) and Force Dynamics (got a thorough copyedit session by User:MIT Trekkie, but no further comments). I've been trying to remedy this by reviewing other articles myself. If everyone did this, it should work, right? User:Mark Dingemanse— User:Mark Dingemanse User Talk:Mark Dingemanse 15:03, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC) :Oh, and another thing: is it a good idea to encourage removal of listings that clearly don't meet the purpose of peer review (like some of RickK's recent questions about advertising or copyvio's)? I think it is. User:Mark Dingemanse— User:Mark Dingemanse User Talk:Mark Dingemanse 15:23, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC) ::I think it is, but for current FAC's at least there is (so far) no consensus to remove, but I would be for that too. Then lest them relist if it fails FAC. The duplication of comments are often ignored, wasting everyone's efforts. - User:Taxman 17:26, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC) :I fully support your aims of revitalizing WP:PR, but we need to figure out how to do it and reduce the voluminous instructions the page now has. Yes I did just get tired of talking to myself. I think we should remove the policy part to a separate page that we point to only if people question what happened, and leave only the most important instructions. Overall, the best thing for PR would be to have both more comments and more responses from listers. One way to do that is to remove listings that have had no response to comments by the lister. I have simply not enforced that policy because I had not gotten much seconding from anyone on it. Another way is to remove innapropriate listings as Mark has mentioned. The only tough part there is you need to have a policy that can back you up that people have agreed on. That is instruction creep which is bad, but maybe that is why we should have policy on a separate page such as WP:PR/Policy. Finally short instructions that do make it clear to the lister it is their responsibility to help implement suggestions. I haven't even been consistently adding the template to listed articles talk pages to let other editors know it is on PR. That needs to be done too. Agree/disagree/thoughts? - User:Taxman 17:26, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC) ::Do you mean that you're in charge of Peer review, to the extent of feeling responsible for adding the template...? The listers are supposed to add it, aren't they? A separate policy page plus very simple instructions on PR itself seems like a brilliant idea to me. But what I don't understand is how we're ever going to get any number of people to "agree on" any Peer review policy at all, considering the look and the date stamps on this Talk page: how're you even going to tell people that a policy is up for discussion? The policy section of the Village Pump...? (Frankly, though, do people read that?) Lack of interest in this (or any) page is a bit of a circular problem, I guess. People go to WP:FAC and take part in the process because they're interested in the process--they don't do it just when they want to nominate something of their own, which seems to be the case, and kind of a self-perpetuating problem, on PR. At least, I'm afraid that's exactly what I did myself: I've been reviewing some entries recently because I've got one of my own up now (fruitlessly, Shakespeare's reputation). I think you're doing a very useful thing, Taxman, in mentioning PR a lot on WP:FAC and trying to get people to to use PR as a stepping-stone to FAC; I wish I could think of some other ideas for enlivening PR. It could/should be a very important and helpful process.--User:Bishonen | User talk:Bishonen 22:11, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC) :::I've not been deemed in charge, but my general philosophy is that if I know how to do something the way it should be done and no one else does it, I should. Of course the listers are supposed to, but currently few do I think. Shorter, clearer instructions would help a lot. Don't worry about waiting for lots of people to weigh in on this, we are talking about really non controversial changes--basically enforcing policy that is already there for the most part and clarifying for the rest. I wont have a chance to split the policy stuff off until perhaps sometime tonight if I am lucky, but have a go at it if you have a chance. Having the instructions be the shortest they can possibly be, but get the aims of PR accross and the mechanics would be good. - User:Taxman 23:30, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC) :::I've been toying with ideas to freshen up PR myself, as I am disappointed both by the level of feedback on PR as compared to FAC (substantive edits should not be made while on FAC, in my opinion — that's what PR is for), and my inability to parse PR effectively to give feedback on articles eventually headed to FAC, which I'd like to do (Bishonen, Shakespeare's rep is on my list!!!). One idea I came up with is to categorize PR — by status, not by topic. For example, we could have a "Future FAC" category, with subheadings corresponding to how much work needs to be done: e.g. "Someday I'd like this to be on FAC", "This article is halfway to FAC", and "Just stopping in for a final checkup before FAC". Other categories could include requests for PR following an edit war or POV edit; single-author articles in search of broader input; articles needing detective work on fact checking, possible copyvios, or advertising; etc. Alternatively, we could keep the FAC categories only, and be more forceful about directing other PR requests to more appropriate lists including Needs Attention, Needs Cleanup, etc. My hunch is that if PR were really the final filter before FAC it would get a lot more attention than it does now, serving as a catch-all for people looking for help. User:Bantman 23:02, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC) ::::I think we should take the steps Bishonen and I have outlined above first then come back to the bit more extensive changes you have outlined if we can get more support for them. Lets see how delisting innapropriate and 'ingnored by the poster' listings, and clearer instructions work first? Are you ok with that in the short term? I would like to make a smaller set of changes first because I believe they will work very well. Thanks - User:Taxman 23:30, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC) :::::Yes, I support this plan (is this turning into a vote?). Let's give the first set of changes some time; I know my ideas are more radical, so lets shelve them for a month or so and see if more changes are still needed then. User:Bantman 00:14, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC) :::::I support this plan too. User:Mark Dingemanse— User:Mark Dingemanse User Talk:Mark Dingemanse 00:19, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC) ::::::This is a unanimous vote from all contributors to this talk page over the last 100 days. :) User:Bantman 00:35, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC) :I agree that WP:PR is not as effective as it could be. Perhaps we need to split peer review into at least two parts: :#a mandatory period of pre-FAC review ("purgatory"?) - I think this is what they do on the German wikipedia, where
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