Somebody else’s problem

Everyone agrees that peer-reviewed assessment of scientific articles is important. But sometimes it seems that everyone wants it to be somebody else’s problem.

Readers – many scientists, journalists, tenure committees – want it to be the journals’ problem.

Editors want it to be the reviewers’ problem.

Funding agencies want it to be the panels’ problem.

Administrators want it to be the external reviewers’ problem.

Reviewers complain about being inundated with review requests and want it to be other reviewers’ problem.

Almetrics people want it to be the cloud’s problem.

And not just somebody else’s problem, but it has to be the right somebody else. Witness the harumphing and frowning and kvetching about “appropriate channels” when papers get criticized on the blogosphere.

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Somebody else’s problem