Schliesser: I am being overwhelmed by refereeing requests
Big Deal Philosopher: Life is short; I only review for the top journals.
Schliesser (enviously): define 'top'
Big Deal Philosopher: Healy 4; maybe Ethics, too.
Schliesser (even more enviously): I would feel as if I were free-riding. How about tenure reviews?
Big Deal Philosopher: no more than two or three a year.
Schliesser (whispering): I hate you.
One unexpected side-effect of blogging has been the marked increase in referee, tenure, and blurbing requests in my life. (I am not attributing the whole increase to blogging; undoubtedly some of it has to do with normal seniority.) I largely keep saying yes to many more requests than I would like. I doubt duty has much to do with my service. I self-justify my enduring commitment to refereeing with three reasons:
(i) I enjoy shaping the future of the field--call that the gate-keeper-function.
(ii) I have a vague sense that I need to give back to the profession that has treated me so well, including, especially, some very generous referees of my earliest papers; we're in it together, after all--call that the vocational spirit. (Maybe for some this would count as duty.)
(iii) I recognize that the really senior scholars I admire keep reading outside their own privileged circle; by refereeing I stay aware of what's happening and stave off the worst features of a certain form of intellectual narcissism common at the top (see Josh Armstrong's review of Searle for what I have in mind)--call that the stay fresh strategy.*
As my 'research days' get consumed by refereeing and other (often reviewing) obligations, (i-iii) start to seem increasingly quixotic. I have never felt that refereeing is rewarded by academic employers. (The present post was prompted by this one at Dailynous; sadly the discussion is very brief.) In fact, in my experience, at institutions that incentive-ize refereed journal publications (as is increasingly common in European grant-driven research environments [recall]) there is a tacit, corrupting encouragement to free-ride on other people's editing and refereeing efforts. Since I have been amply rewarded by these same institutions, I feel like I owe the system (see II above).
When I started blogging, I advocated -- following a suggestion by Alva Noë -- to give referees partial credit for accepted papers (this was an obsession at the time--there are a whole bunch of more posts I did). That is, their names should be listed on the published paper (in the manner of how some learned societies include the fellow who communicated a paper) and, ideally, their referee reports should be available online. While I imagine that risk-averse referees will let fewer papers through (and thereby stay secret), the proposal gives credit where (partial) credit is due. Implementing the proposal may also help expose refereeing echo-chambers/buddy systems. (I have seen some science journals include anonymized referee reports with publications.) I still defend the proposal, especially because more and more journals seem to be working with a-quasi-algorithmic demand of two positive reports before a paper can be accepted in effect entailing that the editor(s)'s name(s) on the mast-head does not convey a seal of quality, but (no less important) organizational skill and commitment.
There was a period in which I hoped that the (philosophical) blogosphere would facilitate the creation of a new knowledge economy in which journal publication becomes far less relevant to professional advancement. (Yeah, that is a self-serving hope because it would liberate me from writing such articles. Schliesser daydream: "Yes Dean X, I understand you want to hire me as Distinguished Professor of Digital Philosophy and your only demand is that I keep blogging?") But while some blogs certainly have created a (newish) version of the gate-keeping function, with (solid) jobs scarce relative to (increasing) number of PhDs, credentialing by a limited number of journals stands to become only more important.
At some point, I kind of expected that the system would simply grind to a halt--everybody with multiple papers under review waiting for some referee report. But editors are actually getting better at nudging us in various ways (undoubtedly relying on the journal for peer-reviewed nudge-technologies).
Having said that, I need to turn to that overdue report.
* The stay fresh strategy also induces me to review too many books.
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