[Air-L] powerful senior professors

[Christian Nelson]

On Feb 9, 2008, at 6:59 PM, Jonathan Sterne, Dr. wrote:

> Christian Nelson's understanding of the editorial process seems a  
> bit naive.

Perhaps you'd like to back that comment up with some evidence and  
reasoning. You know, like how I backed up my claims? Otherwise, all  
you've just done is engage in name-calling, which befits a grammar  
school playground more than a scholarly listserv. Or did I mistake  
the nature of this listserv?

>   First, I'm not sure that open access journals ought to have open  
> source reviewing.  Knowledge is not necessarily democratic: there  
> are people who know more about their fields than others, and  
> frankly, I'd like THOSE people to review my work when I submit it  
> to a journal.

As I noted with the CNET.com example, there is no reason that an  
online journal must be EITHER reviewed by so-called experts OR by the  
readership in general. They can do both at once. Aren't you being a  
bit naive about the possibilities to suggest otherwise?

> One of the great values of the humanities and social sciences (and  
> indeed all basic research) is that learned people are allow to  
> pursue lines of inquiry whose immediate payoff may not be  
> immediately apparent to others.  Academics should not be subject to  
> popularity contests or ratings.

Uh, didn't you read any of my examples? I pointed out that I've had  
two editors deny my work even a review because my approach to  
communication (Wittgensteinian) was too different. One went on to  
explicitly state that few if any of his readers would read my work  
because it was so out of the mainstream. (BTW, the paper was later  
published in Language and Communication, edited by a highly regarded  
Wittgenstienian scholar whose decision to publish the paper vouches  
for its quality.) I'd rather take my chances with a real popularity  
contest than one a lone editors makes up in his head.

And who said that a journal should or would have to make editorial  
decisions based on popularity? I didn't suggest that, as a less  
careless and/or defensive reading of my post will show.

> CNET is very useful for what it is, but it is not a model for  
> scholarship.

Of course, you have reason and evidence for saying that, right?  
Please do let us in on it.

> More often than not, leading figures in a field don't do a lot of  
> journal reviewing because they're too busy with other kinds of  
> reviewing, like tenure dossiers (this has certainly happened to me,  
> and I'm not even full yet).  I also find that senior, leading  
> figures are just as likely to be MORE open minded to new ideas and  
> new approaches than younger scholars, who may have more invested in  
> advancing or defending a particular paradigm as they establish  
> themselves.  Of course there are also tenured professors who appear  
> to eat their own brains, so I guess we can't generalize too much in  
> this regard.
>
> Open access, yes, but with a solid, blind peer review.  In that  
> respect, IJOC is a fine example.

Again, blind peer review can be made part of a review system. Again,  
take a look at CNET.

Christian Nelson