Anonymity can't fix scientific peer review, it can only replace type I errors with type II errors. Instead of suppressing criticism that ought not to be suppressed, anonymity can (and often does) fail to suppress criticism that really ought to be suppressed because it is in fact false and defamatory. And indeed, what this article is really about is a lawsuit that alleges that this kind of error has in fact taken place.
Ironically, the very title of this article is a model of non-scientific thinking that ought to be subject to criticism, but attempts to inoculate itself against criticism by asserting that the subjects of the piece are protagonists "fighting to fix" a broken system. They're not. They're fighting to replace one broken system with a different broken system.
There is no question that scientific peer review is broken and needs to be fixed. But anonymity is not the answer. And holding anonymity up as something that should itself be beyond criticism is certainly not the answer.
I agree completely. In my experience as a PhD student (comp sci), all conferences make reviewers anonymous. As a result, there is very little accountability regarding the reviews you receive for your work. More than once, I have had papers rejected simply because a single reviewer barely read the paper and dismissed it. These kinds of reviews are very frustrating to receive, not only because they failed to understand the basic premises of your paper, but because these reviews contain no useful information on how to make your paper better for future submissions.
Of course, the opposite can happen where mediocre works slips through, and the reviewers that allowed that should be held accountable too. Its painful to me that so much of the acceptance process for research papers (in my field at least) is based on luck.
Moral of the story: reviewer anonymity is good but it comes at the expensive of accountability.
Debatable on whether or not you can assume litigation is grounds for defamation. Even if it is true, it's not necessary that anonymity required the scientist to sue.
I think the appeal for the case to drop is not to discourage discussion of anonymity in review, but that it isn't discussion. A jury panel that decides to outcome of a paper could make science worse off than through a panel of peers.
Someone very clearly was trying to get Dr. Sarkar fired. The PubPeer comments are only one small aspect. But the person then also (I assume anonymously) emailed his new employer to allege fraud, and then went so far as to print out these allegations and stamped them with official looking nonsense about being from the an NIH investigation (which didn't exist), and distributed them throughout Sarkar's department mail boxes.
The complaint makes a decent case for why they think pretty much all the negativity directed at this researcher is likely from one angry person. They obviously can't prove that multiple anonymous comments are from the same person, but reading the content it certainly seems likely. What is assumed to be the same person then took things way past the line of what most of us would consider ethical.
There may very well be a place for anonymous calling out of potential research misconduct. But making fraud allegations anonymously online, then printing out those comments, trying to fake them to look like an official government inquiry, and physically delivering them to the researcher's boss at his place of work isn't the way to do that. This case might be one of those cases where the anonymity should be protected at all costs out of principle, but it's a really shitty case to wave your "we're the good guys" flag for.
A complaint is just a pleading before any trial of the facts has occurred. The statements about what may have happened (or may not have happened) are under the heading "FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS" in the document you kindly linked. So to describe the same issues you describe, I would write, "The actual complaint alleges some pretty nasty behavior." We have yet to see how many of those allegations will be believed by a trier of fact at trial.
The plausible evidence of persistent research misconduct in this case seems to be a reasonable basis for someone not to get a new job with more research responsibilities, so there may not be any actual harm to the plaintiff here. The defense of truth is strong in a defamation case.
This is pretty factual discussion, and the fraud allegations are very convincing. Look at the pictures of the gels. (I don't understand why people use Photoshop to create fake images. You could create a fake gel in 30 minutes, make a real photo of it, and noone will ever be able to prove it.)
If I made a discovery like this, I'd also get pissed. I'd probably also contact the employer of this person.
I am also not sure (as was a commenter in a reply) what was objectionable about my first reply to you, but now that I see that I can no longer edit that reply anyway, I should link here to what PubPeer says in reply to the plaintiff's motion to force disclosure of the name of the PubPeer commenter(s).
As an aside, I'll mention that the PubPeer lawyer is doing a much better job in filing pleadings, perhaps because PubPeer is a more above-board client, than Sarkar's lawyer is doing. Yeesh, what a mess the Sarkar complaint is. (Yes, I am a laywer, and I have read pleadings before and have a gut sense of which pleadings are convincing.) Note that the American Civil Liberties Union signed off as lawyers for PubPeer.
You should read the last link in the article. The whole thing is a great read actually. But take a look especially at the results section that starts on page 22. It proves very convincingly that "for each of the 28 image-issues... evaluated,
strong evidence supports the conclusion that the images are not authentic or contain other
irregularities symptomatic of tampering": https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/krueger_affi...
I think the increase in fraudulent papers getting published is a symptom, not the disease. The disease is that there are too many scientists doing research for a given research budget.
Due to the ferocious competition for grant money, people are either sloppy and cut corners, or do whatever they need to do and outright cheat to publish in top tier journals.
As a society, we need to make a decision about how much we want to fund scientific research - then, once we've made that decision, insure that we put in place a sustainable system in place - we cannot put in a put of money to finance 100 grants, but then build a pipeline that funnels an ever increasing amount of people into a pool that remains constant.
One could argue that papers are the disease. It was a good medium, but with today's communication technology, something better needs to arise. The need to "publish to exist" in academia has gotten to the point that it promotes sub-standard work and hinders advancement of knowledge.
Do you agree that that's a "command and control" approach to the market for research labor? In other words, it sounds like you want to have the government set the number of researchers in the field rather than simply pay for the amount of research it wants, in the same way some governments (the USSR is the classical example) in the past have decided on the number of manufacturers in a certain industry, not just how much they want to pay for a certain widget.
All things being equal, such approaches are generally discouraged by economists. So presumably you think that the market for research labor is unusual, e.g. has some market failure. Could you describe what you think that is?
Basically, my angle is that, once you've answered this question, it's almost always better to try to fix the market failure directly rather than go full command and control. For instance, if you think that prospective PhD students aren't well informed about the long odds against getting a tenured position, then it would be better to educate those students rather than instituting a cap on the number of PhDs that are funded.
Funding review is different than pre-publication or even post-publication review of results.
One argument is that review of results is easier for a reviewee to defend in public, since the data and results are stated and there's nothing to hide. Reviewing funding proposals is more speculative once you get past basic methods or ethics review (e.g. depends on the risk appetite of the funders) and therefore might require anonymity.
This is something we've been grappling at Experiment. It's possible a better design of the system is a double blind review for proposals but a public post-pub review for results.
I take the opposite approach: I sign my reviews and have ever since I was a grad student. It compels me to do a better job reviewing and often leads to further discussion and sometimes collaboration with the authors. Some people don't like what I have to say, but by and large, they respect it. For many topics that I review for, the authors will have a pretty good idea that I wrote the review unless I am intentionally vague. I would rather write clearly and directly and stand behind it. It is a professional risk that I don't think anyone should be compelled to take, but I think signing reviews is generally good for science.
Yes, I think anonymity in reviews is largely a myth, even in "double blind" reviews. For many topics, there are only a few research groups actively pursuing them, and you can often tell from what other work they cite, what datasets they use, etc., which lab it is. So identifying at least some of the authors is relatively easy. You might not get the exact grad student right, but you probably know their advisor.
Identifying reviewers is a little harder, but it's usually not difficult to make educated guesses unless they are, as you put it intentionally vague. Otherwise the other comments on this article about bad reviews from 'people from "a different camp" simply disliking a given approach' and the like would be impossible to justify.
1. Alice wishes to register on PeerPub. She generates a Nonce N.
2. She blinds the nonce with a factor B.
3. She submits the blinded nonce and her identity to PeerPub. PeerPub checks her credentials and executes a blind signature of the number and returns it to Alice.
4.Alice now separately registers an account perhaps using a privacy protecting system like Tor. She uses the original N and the unblinded Signature.
5. PeerPub verifies N + signature and registers the account. PeerPub will have no way of linking N to the original credentials. PeerPub can record N and make sure it can only be used once to register an account.
Peer review might be broken, but it's not anonymity that will fix it. For the simple reason that we already have double-blind reviews in many fields and the peer reviewing process is not any less broken there.
There are people who are thinking of multiple solutions, one that I think is interesting is the proposition of Open Scholar, dubbed "Independant Peer-Review". I submitted it to HN so we can discuss it without flooding this thread, if it interests HNers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8734271.
In there scheme, the papers are open access from the beginning, the peer reviewing process is open, and reviews are citable. I believe it would encourage better and deeper reviews.
It would also be very nice for young scientists or students who want to apply for a PhD grant to be able to show that they are able to write a comprehensive review of a paper in their field, and that their review was good enough to significantly improve the paper or to be selected by the authors and/or publishers to be released alongside the paper, for instance.
As a person who did research until a few years ago, I must say that the problem is the exact opposite. When you send an article to a journal, the paper gets reviewed by a number of peers, which send their comments back to the Editor on the appropriateness of the claimed work.
The problem with this mechanism is that reviewers have no liability, because their comment is anonymous to the author and won't be available to the readers, as it won't be published as part of the article. The result is that reviewers are not made accountable now or in the future for inaccuracies in their review, blatant attacks, or tactical requests for additional irrelevant investigation just out of spite or to stall you so that they can scoop your paper.
Occasionally, the Editor can step in and disregard a particularly obnoxious reviewer, but it depends on the editor, the journal, and the political/scientific strength of the reviewer.
> because their comment is anonymous to the author and won't be available to the readers
You can make comments on your papers available; there is nothing against that. I really think, however, peer review comments should actually be published with rejected and accepted papers (at the author's consent, not reviewers) so that conferences can be more transparent.
> A prominent cancer scientist, unhappy with the attention his research papers have received on PubPeer, is suing some of our anonymous commenters for defamation
On the other hand, should anonymous commenters have the balance of power: in other words, say whatever they want with impunity, even if it actually is defamatory?
(Not saying that is the case in this situation, but in general).
The problem is that defamation is a legal concept, which can only be tried legally. So for instance, whereas a site can rigorously enforce rules which say that all comments are directed at the research material, and not at persons, and have a factual basis in that material, those measures cannot take away the right of someone, who feels they have been defamed, to take the matter to court (where they will almost certainly lose, which is neither here nor there).
You can't just create a site and declare it above the law, so to speak.
The only way to protect the identities of the anonymous is for the site to take responsibility for the statements it publishes: to assert that the anonymous statements are subject to rigorous standards of review, and when published, they in fact reflect the views of PubPeer, and PubPeer alone, and not of any anonymous persons (who do not publish any statements, but act only as sources of information).
Then if someone feels they have been the target of defamation, the defendant shall be PubPeer.
As is always the case, the First Amendment does not give universal and blanket permission. There is are multiple tensions. The appeals court in Dendrite v. Doe guidelines for this matter are:
> (1) the plaintiff must make good faith efforts to notify the poster and give the poster a reasonable opportunity to respond; (2) the plaintiff must specifically identify the poster's allegedly actionable statements; (3) the complaint must set forth a prima facie cause of action; (4) the plaintiff must support each element of the claim with sufficient evidence; and (5) "the court must balance the defendant's First Amendment right of anonymous free speech against the strength of the prima facie case presented and the necessity for the disclosure of the anonymous defendant's identity."
In case of defamation, there's already a pretty high barrier for prima facie cause of action, and relatively broad protection for anonymous speech.
There's also little special about online communications. Anonymous speech, and the difficulties in balancing the different factors, have existed since before the founding of the country, when anonymous pamphlets like 'Common Sense' were used to press the call for independence.
Regarding "the site [must] take responsibility for the statements it publishes", this is wrong. Otherwise HN must be responsible for everything posted here, and we would have no HN. The relevant law is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which grants pretty broad immunity to service providers. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicatio... .
So: 1) it's well-established that anonymous commenters cannot say whatever with impunity, 2) defamation in this case is little different than the many previous cases on the topic, 3) no one seriously believes you can create a site and declare it above the law (assuming no jurisdiction problems), 4) existing case law is on the side of PubPeer, and 5) CDA gives PubPeer the ability to host anonymous comments without automatically being the target of a defamation suit.
This situation is reminiscent of websites hosting copyrighted material posted by anonymous users. Does the relevant law (DMCA, I think) say anything about defamation? A reasonable compromise might be that websites are held harmless so long as they respond to official defamation complaints in some prescribed manner. (Of course, this might not work as well because defamation is significantly less clear-cut than copyright violations, which already has plenty of cases of over-reach due to disputes over fair use, etc.)
What we need here is a more nuanced approach. Anonymity can solve some problems in research, but it will make other worse.
When people are anonymous, they ARE more likely to be truthful in their criticism. They have less incentive to hold back, and it's just human nature to tone down critical feedback when you're critiquing the work of someone with is either influential or an acquaintance. No one likes to make enemies.
On the other hand, anonymity can pretty clearly bring out some of the worst in us. Some people feel little obligation to be fair or honest when their reputation isn't on the line, and so you see people trying to knock down rivals, people they don't like, or random strangers just for the "thrill of the troll."
Imagine if every time you applied for a job your potential employer had access to anonymous feedback on your past work. Some of it might be fair and honest (whether positive or negative), but some of it might be lies from an anonymous coworker with a grudge. Maybe someone is trying to take you down a rung because you got the promotion over them. You could be penalized for any petty reason, and it would stick with you.
Anonymous feedback communicated publicly is much the same. It holds the reviewer and the object of review on unequal footing. Anonymous feedback would be great for an author or even an editor, but it's just not fair to allow the pettiest of people to attack the works of others while wearing a mask. I'd like a system that helps researchers and others invested in the work to solicit anonymous feedback to make the work better. Public-facing commentary, on the other hand, should be tied to an identity.
One of the main issues is that this is just a really tedious process. No one wants to go through algebra; that's why it's siphoned off to grad students. Do you really think a tenured professor is going to spend time checking the grunt work on /someone else's/ paper when they won't do it for their own? I'm intrigued by the possibility of using natural language processing and logical system tools like Wolfram Alpha. Wolfram recently posted on his blog about building machines that could store data about complex mathematical objects, and already you can build machines that confirm first order logical statements.
Farming out low-level tasks to automated systems would be interesting. Imagine if the format of papers changed entirely, ie, you had to submit your proofs in certain formats, or at least certain parts in specific ways. I'm sure that many professors would be elated to see the number of papers they have to review go down drastically; although, I'm sure many will be disappointed to get a return letter that says, "I'm sorry, but the low level flaws were so serious that they were automatically rejected and are not fit for review."
I'm a permanent staff member and I do actually check "algebra" and integrals when reviewing papers. Especially "technique" papers, because after the initial paper, people tend to make black boxes, so if the initial errors aren't caught then they can propagate for quite some time...I view it as community service.
Let's be sure to point out some terrible journalism, reading the following makes me completely disinterested in finishing the article and have considerably less respect for Wired.
> Have you ever questioned the claims that scientists make? For example, last year’s discovery of the so-called “God particle,”
Using the nickname for the Higgs in the context of questioning science claim is nothing but bait for the foolish and misinformed, and in this way anyone scientifically literate should seriously question any claims or opinions in this publication.
This is an interesting problem. On the one hand, there are merits to a referee being anonymous to the submitter. Part of this may be to avoid reprisal for younger referees, but even for more established referees, you may be freer to comment if you are anonymous to the author. BUT, you are not completely anonymous. Hopefully (though there have been some recent scandals related to this) an editor of the journal knows your work and has chosen to use you as a referee based on that. This can help to keep down some of the noise that another poster (lisper) mentioned. Also, the fact that the editor knows who you are may provide some constraint on how you may phrase a review as compared to if you were completely anonymous.
I don't think this is something one should issue a lawsuit over--but I also don't think that their proposal of completely anonymous review is at all useful.
My understanding is that most peer review systems in place at various journals and funding agencies today are already anonymous (except for when people are identified by their well known viewpoints.) If you ask me, the real problem can't be solved with communications technology, the real problem must be solved at the source: The funding agencies need to take the importance of reproduction of results seriously and require their grantees to do a certain amount of rote reproduction work in order to qualify for grants for novel research. Will it slow the pace of things down? Certainly. Will it increase the quality of the science? Certainly.
Much of the discussion here seems to have become "anonymity vs. non-anonymity" --- i.e. either anonymity is good for research or it's bad for research. Why not just accept that in some venues there will be anonymity, and in some not, and let them each develop according to the merits of the respective approaches? No need to have all research anonymous or all research clearly attributed to a public identity.
I usually think that peer review is broken, but that is because we almost always miss the point of what the actual purpose of peer review is for. Peer review is NOT for laymen. A scientific paper is part of a much longer process of discovery which includes massive amounts of debate and argument. Papers always reflect they very edge of a field where literally the only people who can judge whether the results are plausible are peers because they are the ones who are also trying to make sense of the same phenomenon. Over time some primary research papers are singled out because they really are excellent explanations of a phenomenon most of the time however you have to go look at a review paper. Furthermore peer review is absolutely NOT about reproducibility, it is a prerequisite that says that it MIGHT be worth trying to reproduce this work or work contingent on these results being valid. There are so many reasons why a result might be wrong that it often takes fields years to figure it out and the published literature is a record of that.
With Publons.com (https://publons.com) we have different philosophy: the more transparency we can bring to the review process, the better. At the same time we recognise that both blind and double-blind peer review play an important role in generating quality research.
Our approach is to focus on turning review of all kinds (including both pre- and post-publication) into a measurable research output -- something you can add to your resume. We support both anonymous and signed review with the idea that it will lead to greater transparency in the long run and also motivate reviewers to contribute more.
We have a significant number of both types of review now and are starting to look ways to measure if there are significant differences between blind and open review.
Hi, I like the site and idea. I was wondering if you were thinking of taking it one step further, however, and making it an actual pre-print server?
I would think that if you expect people to take the "credit for reviewing" model seriously, then likewise they should take seriously the notion of "credit for being reviewed" or "credit for being upvoted".
Also, there would have to be a way to verify submitters/reviewers credentials (e.g. connection to a research institution). Obvious arXiv has a model for how this could be done.
Something I've noticed is that most online articles about scientific misconduct and invalid results revolve around the medical sciences. Granted, medicine is probably the biggest piece of the scientific pie right now, and other branches of science may have their own problems, but I think it misleads the public to have a title like "scientific peer review is broken," for an article that focuses exclusively on one branch of science.
Disclaimer: I'm a physicist. I'm sure that physics is not beyond critique, but unless somebody is willing to take enough of an interest in the inner workings of physics research to say something specific about it or credibly include it in a generalization, I'd rather say something like "medical peer review is broken."
Fortunately, the First Amendment is on our side. It protects the right to anonymous speech.
I don't understand how "The government cannot outlaw your speech" means "Your anonymity is protected by law from private parties". How does that interpretation come about?
> "the court must balance the defendant's First Amendment right of anonymous free speech against the strength of the prima facie case presented and the necessity for the disclosure of the anonymous defendant's identity."
Not as deep an article as I'd hoped, but it points to a difficult question. As reviewers of scientific papers have unprecedented power over what research gets published, who reviews the reviewers?
(A personal example - I have just spent a week constructing a counterargument to a reviewer who didn't read my paper properly. Imagine having an online discussion where your career success hangs on the response of an anonymous, disengaged flamer to a single post of yours: can you imagine how much effort you put into that post? Sadly this particular argument is pointless and serves nobody; it would be better use of my time to get on with actual research, but that's not how the system works).
I don't get their stance ... peer-review is already "anonymous". There are also a lot of issues with truly anonymous user forums (see 2chan and 4chan). For me it always seems as if the social aspects of communication disappear when one is truly anonymous, e.g. hate speech. The problem is not lack of anonymity but lack of incentives for reviews (I don't get anything from doing a thorough review of a paper and often it's hard to impossible to judge the contribution without dataset and code). It seems peerpub and similar systems will attract people who have the incentive to attack specific authors (as it happened in this case).
[+] [-] lisper|11 years ago|reply
Ironically, the very title of this article is a model of non-scientific thinking that ought to be subject to criticism, but attempts to inoculate itself against criticism by asserting that the subjects of the piece are protagonists "fighting to fix" a broken system. They're not. They're fighting to replace one broken system with a different broken system.
There is no question that scientific peer review is broken and needs to be fixed. But anonymity is not the answer. And holding anonymity up as something that should itself be beyond criticism is certainly not the answer.
[+] [-] seccess|11 years ago|reply
Of course, the opposite can happen where mediocre works slips through, and the reviewers that allowed that should be held accountable too. Its painful to me that so much of the acceptance process for research papers (in my field at least) is based on luck.
Moral of the story: reviewer anonymity is good but it comes at the expensive of accountability.
[+] [-] dluan|11 years ago|reply
I think the appeal for the case to drop is not to discourage discussion of anonymity in review, but that it isn't discussion. A jury panel that decides to outcome of a paper could make science worse off than through a panel of peers.
[+] [-] jessriedel|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Florin_Andrei|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dougmccune|11 years ago|reply
Someone very clearly was trying to get Dr. Sarkar fired. The PubPeer comments are only one small aspect. But the person then also (I assume anonymously) emailed his new employer to allege fraud, and then went so far as to print out these allegations and stamped them with official looking nonsense about being from the an NIH investigation (which didn't exist), and distributed them throughout Sarkar's department mail boxes.
The complaint makes a decent case for why they think pretty much all the negativity directed at this researcher is likely from one angry person. They obviously can't prove that multiple anonymous comments are from the same person, but reading the content it certainly seems likely. What is assumed to be the same person then took things way past the line of what most of us would consider ethical.
There may very well be a place for anonymous calling out of potential research misconduct. But making fraud allegations anonymously online, then printing out those comments, trying to fake them to look like an official government inquiry, and physically delivering them to the researcher's boss at his place of work isn't the way to do that. This case might be one of those cases where the anonymity should be protected at all costs out of principle, but it's a really shitty case to wave your "we're the good guys" flag for.
[+] [-] tokenadult|11 years ago|reply
The plausible evidence of persistent research misconduct in this case seems to be a reasonable basis for someone not to get a new job with more research responsibilities, so there may not be any actual harm to the plaintiff here. The defense of truth is strong in a defamation case.
[+] [-] jakobegger|11 years ago|reply
This is pretty factual discussion, and the fraud allegations are very convincing. Look at the pictures of the gels. (I don't understand why people use Photoshop to create fake images. You could create a fake gel in 30 minutes, make a real photo of it, and noone will ever be able to prove it.)
If I made a discovery like this, I'd also get pissed. I'd probably also contact the employer of this person.
[+] [-] tokenadult|11 years ago|reply
http://retractionwatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/2014.1...
As an aside, I'll mention that the PubPeer lawyer is doing a much better job in filing pleadings, perhaps because PubPeer is a more above-board client, than Sarkar's lawyer is doing. Yeesh, what a mess the Sarkar complaint is. (Yes, I am a laywer, and I have read pleadings before and have a gut sense of which pleadings are convincing.) Note that the American Civil Liberties Union signed off as lawyers for PubPeer.
[+] [-] calhoun137|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Fede_V|11 years ago|reply
Due to the ferocious competition for grant money, people are either sloppy and cut corners, or do whatever they need to do and outright cheat to publish in top tier journals.
As a society, we need to make a decision about how much we want to fund scientific research - then, once we've made that decision, insure that we put in place a sustainable system in place - we cannot put in a put of money to finance 100 grants, but then build a pipeline that funnels an ever increasing amount of people into a pool that remains constant.
[+] [-] snowballsteve|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jessriedel|11 years ago|reply
All things being equal, such approaches are generally discouraged by economists. So presumably you think that the market for research labor is unusual, e.g. has some market failure. Could you describe what you think that is?
Basically, my angle is that, once you've answered this question, it's almost always better to try to fix the market failure directly rather than go full command and control. For instance, if you think that prospective PhD students aren't well informed about the long odds against getting a tenured position, then it would be better to educate those students rather than instituting a cap on the number of PhDs that are funded.
[+] [-] dluan|11 years ago|reply
One argument is that review of results is easier for a reviewee to defend in public, since the data and results are stated and there's nothing to hide. Reviewing funding proposals is more speculative once you get past basic methods or ethics review (e.g. depends on the risk appetite of the funders) and therefore might require anonymity.
This is something we've been grappling at Experiment. It's possible a better design of the system is a double blind review for proposals but a public post-pub review for results.
[+] [-] jedbrown|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] derf_|11 years ago|reply
Identifying reviewers is a little harder, but it's usually not difficult to make educated guesses unless they are, as you put it intentionally vague. Otherwise the other comments on this article about bad reviews from 'people from "a different camp" simply disliking a given approach' and the like would be impossible to justify.
[+] [-] zmanian|11 years ago|reply
This model relies on t a blind cryptographic signature.(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_signature)
PeerPub generates a public/private key pair.
1. Alice wishes to register on PeerPub. She generates a Nonce N.
2. She blinds the nonce with a factor B.
3. She submits the blinded nonce and her identity to PeerPub. PeerPub checks her credentials and executes a blind signature of the number and returns it to Alice.
4.Alice now separately registers an account perhaps using a privacy protecting system like Tor. She uses the original N and the unblinded Signature.
5. PeerPub verifies N + signature and registers the account. PeerPub will have no way of linking N to the original credentials. PeerPub can record N and make sure it can only be used once to register an account.
[+] [-] sweis|11 years ago|reply
http://private-idp.appspot.com/
https://code.google.com/p/pseudoid/
http://blind-signer.appspot.com/
I haven't touched it for years and it looks like the login flow is broken now with the demo sites.
Also, this uses unsafe server-side JS crypto for demo purposes only.
[+] [-] p4bl0|11 years ago|reply
There are people who are thinking of multiple solutions, one that I think is interesting is the proposition of Open Scholar, dubbed "Independant Peer-Review". I submitted it to HN so we can discuss it without flooding this thread, if it interests HNers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8734271.
In there scheme, the papers are open access from the beginning, the peer reviewing process is open, and reviews are citable. I believe it would encourage better and deeper reviews.
It would also be very nice for young scientists or students who want to apply for a PhD grant to be able to show that they are able to write a comprehensive review of a paper in their field, and that their review was good enough to significantly improve the paper or to be selected by the authors and/or publishers to be released alongside the paper, for instance.
[+] [-] esbio|11 years ago|reply
The problem with this mechanism is that reviewers have no liability, because their comment is anonymous to the author and won't be available to the readers, as it won't be published as part of the article. The result is that reviewers are not made accountable now or in the future for inaccuracies in their review, blatant attacks, or tactical requests for additional irrelevant investigation just out of spite or to stall you so that they can scoop your paper.
Occasionally, the Editor can step in and disregard a particularly obnoxious reviewer, but it depends on the editor, the journal, and the political/scientific strength of the reviewer.
[+] [-] seanmcdirmid|11 years ago|reply
You can make comments on your papers available; there is nothing against that. I really think, however, peer review comments should actually be published with rejected and accepted papers (at the author's consent, not reviewers) so that conferences can be more transparent.
[+] [-] kazinator|11 years ago|reply
On the other hand, should anonymous commenters have the balance of power: in other words, say whatever they want with impunity, even if it actually is defamatory?
(Not saying that is the case in this situation, but in general).
The problem is that defamation is a legal concept, which can only be tried legally. So for instance, whereas a site can rigorously enforce rules which say that all comments are directed at the research material, and not at persons, and have a factual basis in that material, those measures cannot take away the right of someone, who feels they have been defamed, to take the matter to court (where they will almost certainly lose, which is neither here nor there).
You can't just create a site and declare it above the law, so to speak.
The only way to protect the identities of the anonymous is for the site to take responsibility for the statements it publishes: to assert that the anonymous statements are subject to rigorous standards of review, and when published, they in fact reflect the views of PubPeer, and PubPeer alone, and not of any anonymous persons (who do not publish any statements, but act only as sources of information).
Then if someone feels they have been the target of defamation, the defendant shall be PubPeer.
[+] [-] dalke|11 years ago|reply
> (1) the plaintiff must make good faith efforts to notify the poster and give the poster a reasonable opportunity to respond; (2) the plaintiff must specifically identify the poster's allegedly actionable statements; (3) the complaint must set forth a prima facie cause of action; (4) the plaintiff must support each element of the claim with sufficient evidence; and (5) "the court must balance the defendant's First Amendment right of anonymous free speech against the strength of the prima facie case presented and the necessity for the disclosure of the anonymous defendant's identity."
In case of defamation, there's already a pretty high barrier for prima facie cause of action, and relatively broad protection for anonymous speech.
There's also little special about online communications. Anonymous speech, and the difficulties in balancing the different factors, have existed since before the founding of the country, when anonymous pamphlets like 'Common Sense' were used to press the call for independence.
Regarding "the site [must] take responsibility for the statements it publishes", this is wrong. Otherwise HN must be responsible for everything posted here, and we would have no HN. The relevant law is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which grants pretty broad immunity to service providers. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicatio... .
So: 1) it's well-established that anonymous commenters cannot say whatever with impunity, 2) defamation in this case is little different than the many previous cases on the topic, 3) no one seriously believes you can create a site and declare it above the law (assuming no jurisdiction problems), 4) existing case law is on the side of PubPeer, and 5) CDA gives PubPeer the ability to host anonymous comments without automatically being the target of a defamation suit.
[+] [-] jessriedel|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ignostic|11 years ago|reply
When people are anonymous, they ARE more likely to be truthful in their criticism. They have less incentive to hold back, and it's just human nature to tone down critical feedback when you're critiquing the work of someone with is either influential or an acquaintance. No one likes to make enemies.
On the other hand, anonymity can pretty clearly bring out some of the worst in us. Some people feel little obligation to be fair or honest when their reputation isn't on the line, and so you see people trying to knock down rivals, people they don't like, or random strangers just for the "thrill of the troll."
Imagine if every time you applied for a job your potential employer had access to anonymous feedback on your past work. Some of it might be fair and honest (whether positive or negative), but some of it might be lies from an anonymous coworker with a grudge. Maybe someone is trying to take you down a rung because you got the promotion over them. You could be penalized for any petty reason, and it would stick with you.
Anonymous feedback communicated publicly is much the same. It holds the reviewer and the object of review on unequal footing. Anonymous feedback would be great for an author or even an editor, but it's just not fair to allow the pettiest of people to attack the works of others while wearing a mask. I'd like a system that helps researchers and others invested in the work to solicit anonymous feedback to make the work better. Public-facing commentary, on the other hand, should be tied to an identity.
[+] [-] ejz|11 years ago|reply
Farming out low-level tasks to automated systems would be interesting. Imagine if the format of papers changed entirely, ie, you had to submit your proofs in certain formats, or at least certain parts in specific ways. I'm sure that many professors would be elated to see the number of papers they have to review go down drastically; although, I'm sure many will be disappointed to get a return letter that says, "I'm sorry, but the low level flaws were so serious that they were automatically rejected and are not fit for review."
[+] [-] ylem|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colechristensen|11 years ago|reply
> Have you ever questioned the claims that scientists make? For example, last year’s discovery of the so-called “God particle,”
Using the nickname for the Higgs in the context of questioning science claim is nothing but bait for the foolish and misinformed, and in this way anyone scientifically literate should seriously question any claims or opinions in this publication.
[+] [-] ylem|11 years ago|reply
I don't think this is something one should issue a lawsuit over--but I also don't think that their proposal of completely anonymous review is at all useful.
[+] [-] weissadam|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pc2g4d|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hyperion2010|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pizza_boy|11 years ago|reply
Our approach is to focus on turning review of all kinds (including both pre- and post-publication) into a measurable research output -- something you can add to your resume. We support both anonymous and signed review with the idea that it will lead to greater transparency in the long run and also motivate reviewers to contribute more.
We have a significant number of both types of review now and are starting to look ways to measure if there are significant differences between blind and open review.
[+] [-] efangs|11 years ago|reply
I would think that if you expect people to take the "credit for reviewing" model seriously, then likewise they should take seriously the notion of "credit for being reviewed" or "credit for being upvoted".
Also, there would have to be a way to verify submitters/reviewers credentials (e.g. connection to a research institution). Obvious arXiv has a model for how this could be done.
[+] [-] analog31|11 years ago|reply
Disclaimer: I'm a physicist. I'm sure that physics is not beyond critique, but unless somebody is willing to take enough of an interest in the inner workings of physics research to say something specific about it or credibly include it in a generalization, I'd rather say something like "medical peer review is broken."
[+] [-] vacri|11 years ago|reply
I don't understand how "The government cannot outlaw your speech" means "Your anonymity is protected by law from private parties". How does that interpretation come about?
[+] [-] dalke|11 years ago|reply
> "the court must balance the defendant's First Amendment right of anonymous free speech against the strength of the prima facie case presented and the necessity for the disclosure of the anonymous defendant's identity."
[+] [-] sideshowb|11 years ago|reply
(A personal example - I have just spent a week constructing a counterargument to a reviewer who didn't read my paper properly. Imagine having an online discussion where your career success hangs on the response of an anonymous, disengaged flamer to a single post of yours: can you imagine how much effort you put into that post? Sadly this particular argument is pointless and serves nobody; it would be better use of my time to get on with actual research, but that's not how the system works).
[+] [-] kgarten|11 years ago|reply