John Bogart, an attorney who also has a PhD in philosophy, kindly gave permission to share his quite interesting and revealing comments about the "white paper," which he read through:
There's not enough information about the composition of the focus groups to assess the value of the reported comments. It is not, e.g., the number of journals contacted but who in fact showed up. I hoped for more transparency on that point. It would also help to understand how the Team was selected and how the Advisory Board was selected. Neither looks like the APA membership or the wider profession. The project seems vague on whether it aims at an "Ethics" of publishing or a set of "Best Practices." They are not the same. Actual review processes got short shrift, e.g. “we did not make peer review a focus of our conversations.” It would be helpful to know why. The Paper gives the impression that the project is really about institutionalizing the view that demographic diversity in authors should be a primary concern of journals, that philosophical work touching on (it is hard to discern exactly what the standard is) matters of concern to marginalized or vulnerable groups should be vetted by members of such groups, and that there should be a post-publication process of discipline or sanctions. The latter receives far too little discussion. E.g., what sort of error in argument is like misstating the data? They are all three controversial, so I expected some defense or explanation of their centrality to the Paper and its recommendations. The recommendations re citation reviews reminded me the equally enlightening symposium on citation in law reviews:
https://www.law.gmu.edu/assets/files/publications/working_papers/1305MicroSymposiumonOrinKerr.pdf
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