[Logophile]

I think the "Amazon model" would work for ALL scientific publication. Accept the paper after editorial review (NOT, note, "peer review"), invite a couple of anonymous reviewers, post the paper AND the anonymous reviews on "journal website", and then let ANYONE post further "reviews" (sort of analogous to the existing Free Republic process with the addition of the "official" anonymous reviews).

I like the idea.

Especially intriguing is your suggestion of dispensing with prepublication peer review. I have seen too many cases where peer review has been used to stifle competition, whether it be in the granting of funds or in the selection of papers for publication. In government-funded science, it matters very much who you are, where you work, and whom you know.

[Wonder Warthog]

"Especially intriguing is your suggestion of dispensing with prepublication peer review. I have seen too many cases where peer review has been used to stifle competition, whether it be in the granting of funds or in the selection of papers for publication.

Well, it would still get "peer-reviewed"--but that would happen post-publication, and by a far wider range of viewers with a correspondingly wide range of expertise, so the scientific integrity of the overall process would remain at least as good as it is now (and probably be FAR better).

It WOULD curtail the use of peer review as a "gateway" process by jealous colleagues and/or competitors, as you so rightly mention. The editor could still get away with it, but nobody else.

"In government-funded science, it matters very much who you are, where you work, and whom you know."

Oh, brother--ain't THAT the truth.