MOVING TO FRONT AGAIN, ORIGINALLY POSTED NOVEMBER 1--QUITE INTERESTING SET OF COMMENTS; MORE WELCOME
A junior philosopher elsewhere writes:
I've been meaning to write to ask if you might be willing to discuss journal review practices again on your blog. Some of your prior posts on the subject have been so useful. It would be good practice for journals to make much more explicit whether they are (and historically have been) triple blind, double blind, or neither, including publications based on conference proceedings (I'm thinking of the "Oxford Studies " series, for example). The lack of transparency is troubling, especially given that journals seem to change their review practices over time. Several publications I assumed were triple blind turned out not to be; and as a young scholar, one may not want to waste one's time with journals that are less than fully blind. It might also be worth pointing out that a publication's reputation in the discipline should be based on complete and accurate information regarding its review practices.
"Triple blind" means, I take it, that the editors who pick referees do not know who the author is; the referees do not know who the author is; and the author does not know who the referees are. "Double-blind" (author and referees are unknown to each other) is fairly common I think; my impression is many of the Oxford Studies volumes are single-blind (authors don't know the referees). It would be interesting to know which journals are now triple-blind, so feel free to post links in the comments (or to comment on any related aspect of this issue). Submit your comment only once, it may take awhile to appear.