Alright, the grievance studies kerfuffle part the last: how this is likely to structurally fuck over marginalised scholars through the peer review process.
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So the main way in which a journal decides whether to publish a paper is by sending it out to two or three other experts in the field and asking them, basically, if this is good scholarship.
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Is it new? Does it add something to the conversation? Is it rigorous? What are its weak points? How could it be made better?
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Peer review tends to be double blind (you don't know whom you're reviewing, and they don't know who's reviewing them), to minimise bias.
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This can vary a little especially in very small specialist fields. Chances are if I get asked to review a paper on A/B/O I'll have a good idea of who the author is and have spoken to them about their work at some point. There's only a limited number of us weirdos.
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There are several different approaches a peer reviewer can take. There is the "I am here to demonstrate my own knowledge and expertise and I forget that the author is a human being with like feelings and shit" approach. (We call this Reviewer 2.)
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There is the "I am here to help the author make this the best paper it can be, in the nicest way possible" approach. (We call this Reviewer 1.)
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Now, as an author, receiving peer review comments can be quite tough. I've literally received comments that said "this is an important and valuable contribution to the field, it needs some tweaks" and felt like a complete failure. Brains are annoying like that.
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We have plenty of Reviewer 2s. So some people will try extra-hard to compensate for that and be as encouraging and enthusiastic as possible, while also offering guidance on how to make a paper better.
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And this something Pluckrose et al. have not only shamelessly exploited but also framed as a failing of the fields they are attacking. In their write-up of the fraud they committed, they cite selected reviewer comments - i.e. the most enthusiastic ones.
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All of the reviews are available and linked in the write up. We cited the ones which showed the problem we were addressing, yes, but you can find all of them.
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