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Experiment On Public Pre-reviewing and Discussion of Workshop Paper Submissions (reddit.com)

Posted by timothy on from the wisdom-of-crowds dept.

An anonymous reader writes: The ADAPT workshop (6th international workshop on adaptive, self-tuning computing systems) is trying a new publication model: all papers have been submitted via Arxiv, are now publicly discussed via Reddit, and will then be selected by a Program Committee for a presentation at the workshop. The idea is to speed up dissemination of novel ideas while making reviews more fair and letting the authors actively engage in discussions, defend their techniques, fix mistakes and eventually improve their open articles.

5 of 41 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Not new by guises · · Score: 2

    The Reddit thing is the notable part, and bizarre. A very odd choice. It seems likely they're doing it for publicity - no different from Facebook integration. It's just a workshop after all, and doing something weird like this can draw people in.

  2. Ah, arXiv by mbone · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You do know that some people are blocked from arXiv, and at least in some cases there is no obvious reason why (and no real appeal)? (Opponents of string theory, for example, seem to get this, or at least complain about this, fairly often.) I have seen this in action, it is real and it is capricious.

    I do not think that arXiv is suitable for a filter for a public meeting as long as its internal filtering is opaque in this fashion.

    1. Re:Ah, arXiv by fph+il+quozientatore · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I have never heard of this, and I am interested. Can you name an example of a respectable scientist (not a "fringe" controversial person, I mean) who has been banned?

      --
      My first program:

      Hell Segmentation fault

    2. Re:Ah, arXiv by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      I have never heard of this, and I am interested. Can you name an example of a respectable scientist (not a "fringe" controversial person, I mean) who has been banned?

      Nobel Laureate Brian Josephson had this happen to him. He posted a record of his interactions with the arXiv moderators at

      http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/articles/arxiv_correspondence.html

      Often the people who get their papers rejected by arXiv are just ordinary researchers who are trying to post ordinary papers. One such example is the following.

      http://blog.tanyakhovanova.com/2013/12/arxivs-police

    3. Re:Ah, arXiv by mbone · · Score: 2

      I have never heard of this, and I am interested. Can you name an example of a respectable scientist (not a "fringe" controversial person, I mean) who has been banned?

      Marni Sheppeard.
      Peter Woit.

      Note that they are not (as far as I can tell) banned, just blocked. Nothing is made public, it's just that certain things seem to happen consistently. And, in my experience, moderated papers are not available to the public.

      Note that the real problem here is not that papers are moderated. I understand the desire for moderation. It's the way it's being done that is problematic.