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Anonymous Peer-review Comments May Spark Legal Battle
sciencehabit writes: The power of anonymous comments — and the liability of those who make them — is at the heart of a possible legal battle embroiling PubPeer, an online forum launched in October 2012 for anonymous, postpublication peer review. A researcher who claims that comments on PubPeer caused him to lose a tenured faculty job offer now intends to press legal charges against the person or people behind these posts — provided he can uncover their identities, his lawyer says.
A list of his articles on PubPeer:
https://pubpeer.com/search?q=sarkar
Conclude from the comments what you will.
There are two possibilities: He lost his tenure because there was an anonymous, incorrect peer review negative towards him. His work was actually good. In that case he should sue the university to make decisions based on anonymous, incorrect peer reviews.
Or he lost his tenure because there was an anonymous, but correct peer review negative towards him. His work wasn't up to scratch. In that case, his loss is deserved. If faults in his work were not detected in a normal review but only in further review by an anonymous person, these faults are still there and due to him. Suing would be like a criminal who got caught due to an anonymous tip suing the tipster.
The scientist and his lawyer suspect foul play by anonymous person(s) who allegedly defamed him by posting ad hominem attacks in their pubpeer comments and then distributed those comment pages to both universities associated with him.
So shouldn't these universities have figured out that there were anonymous person(s) involved defaming him by posting ad hominem attacks?