Shakespeare Quarterly

Hi Sharon,

Thanks for the comments. I know others share your concerns about the potential costs of open / open as opposed to blind-all-around. On the issues you raise, you might find Kathleen Fitzpatrick’s discussion of the history and future of peer review stimulating:

http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/mcpress/plannedobsolescence/one/

Chapter one (which I link above) is what the editors of SQ read as we considered this experiment. From the beginning, we have thought of this as an investigation (in keeping with the topic of this issue) of the costs and benefits of this mode of scholarly exchange for our field.  So it is as helpful to have a list of potential costs to account for as it is to have kudos.

One point you raise — the potential differences in the kind of commentary that could occur here — seems worth expanding on. I think the only persons positioned to weigh in on this are the editorial team who regularly read SQ reader reports. Having read all of the comments on all of the essays posted here carefully, I observe the same range of responses I would include in my own reviews for SQ: some comments are incidental, slight; some comments are deeply analytical and engaged; some are at a middle level of depth somewhere in between.

I must say that were I an author, I would find the tasks set by the many reviewers here daunting. It’s not that there’s too little to respond to, but that there’s so much, and authors will need to choose a path through the comments as they consider how to revise. On the other hand, this version of the process formally creates the space for every author to pursue such revision, which the traditional process does not. In this case, the same phenomenon is both a cost and a benefit, depending on how you look at it.

hey….just a couple of comments.  first, i agree with martin that not being able to edit is unfortunate. second, i guess i’m rather amused by the irony that our peer review here isn’t blind or anonymous, which is usually one of the benefits trumpeted by promoters of digital democracy: one gets to comment and voice one’s opinions anonymously.  i’m aware of fish’s arguments about why peer review shouldn’t be blind, and while i have some sympathy toward some of them–particularly the notion that blind peer review facilitates a false notion of merit and fairness–i’m not yet convinced that open review is preferable overall.  further, in this instance, where reviewers can read other reviewers’ posts and even the responses to those posts by the authors, i wonder if a kind or peer pressure doesn’t emerge, or might not emerge? further still: it seems to me that the analytic depth of the responses here is shallower here than in a typical peer reviewed letter  from SQ.

all that said, i enjoyed reading the essays and commenting on them.

Some impressions about using the site. It look pretty and is well designed, but I was surprised to discover that I didn’t like reading stuff on it. It is much easier for me to read pdfs with clear page turns. I found scrolling through long sections distracting, and it’s harder, at least for me, to go back and find something. 

Apparently, you can’t edit your comments. That’s bad for me because I’m a poor typist and always need to go over something and fix the worst errors.

Also, the built-in editor behaves weirdly when you try to scroll to the bottom of a longish comment. It doesn’t hold its position at the bottom.

Yup. Just needs to go through the first approval so the system can be sure you are not spam.

I have tried to get to the FAQ, but I am getting an error message. I am probably doing something wrong somewhere along the line. At the moment I have posted a couple of comments though they have not shown up yet. And I am assuming that they WILL show up after a while and/or after someone (Katherine?) reviews them?