[Taxacom] Open review as a wiki

[Neal Evenhuis]

At 10:29 AM -0700 3/31/08, Doug Yanega wrote:
>the model some of us are advocating
>would be OPEN review - real-time, online, non-anonymous - in the
>fashion of a Wiki. When all the criticisms of a submitted work have
>been dealt with (by accommodating the valid criticisms and dismissing
>the inappropriate ones)

This is an admirable dream. I've been dreaming this too but being an 
editor for over 30 years I've come up with many questions relating to 
problems that ultimately need the human factor. If you've got some 
answers, let me/us know.

1. How would it be accomplished to take in the vagaries of reviewers' 
habits including not responding in a timely manner?
2. What happens when there may only be one specialist who could give 
a good review and he/she is out of email contact for four weeks while 
in the field?
3. How are time limits to review set (three weeks, a month?)-- or 
does the manuscript languish online for months or years on end in 
hopes "someone" will notice it? The web is passive after all.
4. Will there be some sort of registration of interested parties so 
that they can get email automatic notices when their speciality taxon 
group comes up for review?
5. How do you know that everyone that is a specialist in a particular 
group knows a manuscript is open for review?
6. Bookmarking the "Open Review" site as one's web browser home page 
might solve some of these problems but in reality, someone who sets 
their web browser home page to default to news of a bunch of taxonomy 
manuscripts available for review online would be a VERY weird person 
who doesn't have much of a life. Any solution to this?

I've got more questions but a manuscript for Zootaxa just came in 
needing review ....

-Neal