The "late surprise" problem

[Jeanette Hofmann]

On 21 Mar 2003 at 6:39, Brian E Carpenter wrote:

> Actually this is a solution proposal, which Dave Crocker and I have
> been discussing the last couple of days. I think it has value, and
> it also illustrates what I think we have to do - find subsets of
> the total problem for which we can rapidly implement incremental
> solutions.
> 
>    Brian

In the academic world, peer review itself forms a bottleneck. First of all, 
reviewing other people's work takes a lot of one's productive time. Reviews 
always compete against more urgent duties. People tend to postpone them. I 
don't know anybody who really enjoys review jobs. 

Second, reviews turn easily into a weapon against a certain approach, school 
of thought or person. Not even blind reviews are able to prevent this. 

A panel of reviewers would create a new hierarchy level in order to filter out 
all sorts of noise. Potential costs might be a further slow down of the process 
and wrong filtering mechanisms. It might also be a problem to find enough 
competent people who are actually willing to perform this job. 

Jeanette