Bill, I haven't read all of the posts, but the PLOS journals were an
attempt to rectify many of the "profiteering" problems that you've
described, although they do have page charges (presumably waivable). As
for peer review, after 20+ person years in various editor/editorial
board positions and 80+ of my own authored or coauthored papers, I have
to say that while imperfect, it still is the best system we have. IMO
our problem today is the opposite of what you've described -- so many
journals looking to fill their pages that the literature now has too
many mediocre/poor papers! I'm sure I'll take a lot of flack for that
statement <g>, but consider this - some of us at Am.Fish. Soc. were
looking at this issue with respect to the upcoming online AFS marine
journal. I'm at home, so I don't have the exact figures in front of me
and they were published in a letter in Fisheries earlier this year
(Dennis DeVries was first author). A search of journals that currently
publish marine fish articles yielded a number in the thousands, whereas
the same search for 1980 yielded a number in the low hundreds. As I
said, I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but the gist of the
finding is what I've stated here. Now are there 10 times more
publishable papers being produced now days -- methinks not? Most folks
tend to remember those unfair rejections that certainly happen, but in
my experience, rarely is a really good paper completely excluded from
the literature due to unfair editorial practices. Of course that means
you have to resubmit, sometimes several times and it also means that
your paper may end up in a less prestigious journal, but good papers
completely excluded on anything other than a very rare basis (usually
the author giving up) I haven't seen much evidence of that.
Certainly you raise many important points that need to be considered
such as length limitations (as anyone who has published in ESA journals
has encountered recently), but in general the peer-review system
functions very well. I'd hate to see young scientists get the wrong
impression about it.
cheers, g2
On 5/22/07, *William Silvert* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
A couple of posters have interpreted "publish elsewhere" as leading to
publishing anarchy..... I still get angry when I think of all the
good papers
that don't get published because of lack of space, not lack of
quality (a
major fisheries conference I attended was so successful that many more
papers were submitted than the organisers had contracted for with the
--
Gary D. Grossman
G. Grossman Fine Art
http://www.negia.net/~grossman
Distinguished Research Professor - Animal Ecology
Warnell School of Forestry & Natural Resources
University of Georgia
Athens, GA, USA 30602
http://www.arches.uga.edu/~grossman
Board of Editors - Animal Biodiversity and Conservation
Editorial Board - Freshwater Biology
Editorial Board - Ecology Freshwater Fish
--
Gary D. Grossman
Distinguished Research Professor - Animal Ecology
Warnell School of Forestry & Natural Resources
University of Georgia
Athens, GA, USA 30602
http://www.arches.uga.edu/~grossman
Board of Editors - Animal Biodiversity and Conservation
Editorial Board - Freshwater Biology
Editorial Board - Ecology Freshwater Fish
