Timeline for Double blind peer review when paper cites author's GitHub repo for code
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
21 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jan 27, 2020 at 19:08 | answer | added | beatngu13 | timeline score: 11 | |
| Aug 12, 2019 at 19:26 | comment | added | Norman Gray | @DavidRoberts Ah, good point! It was the 'honor code' one, suggesting that the goal of blinding is to lower the chances of inadvertently identifying the author (for whatever reason), rather than to erase the possibility, through actions which create friction without actually fully working – unwieldy solutions to something that may not be a major problem. I don't 100% agree with this, but I think it gets closer to the real heart of the issue than do the existing technical answers. | |
| Aug 11, 2019 at 20:46 | comment | added | David Roberts | @NormanGray which comment precisely? I think this is more of a bias-reduction measure than an author-protecting measure given the journal in question. | |
| Aug 11, 2019 at 14:40 | comment | added | Norman Gray | For me, @darijgrinberg's comment is the best answer, and I'd up-vote it if it appeared as such. Providing a separate snapshot doesn't work: if I was reviewing code in a repo, it's the history I'd be looking at as much as the code itself. Also, by the time a reader stumbles across a github URI within the paper, they've probably already come to some provisional accept/revise/reject conclusions. If you happen to be in a field with such intense animosities that blinding the author is somehow vital, then you should perhaps talk to the editor about which referees you'd like them to avoid. | |
| Aug 11, 2019 at 12:55 | vote | accept | David Roberts | ||
| Aug 9, 2019 at 17:08 | comment | added | Jouni Sirén | An interesting variant: The repository is public from day 1. By the time the paper is finally submitted, the software may already be widely known in the subfield, and double blind review is impossible. I see this a lot in bioinformatics. | |
| Aug 9, 2019 at 16:56 | comment | added | Dan M. | I find it strange that the Journal requests double-blind review yet supposedly wouldn't allow some temporary cite replacements to guarantee that it is indeed blind. | |
| Aug 9, 2019 at 11:16 | comment | added | darij grinberg | @Abigail: See my comment to the OP. Making your authorship completely un-identifiable borders on the impossible (most of the time, your referees will belong to the 50 people studying your little sub-topic, and they'll be able to make educated guesses on who you are based on your visible interests, background and writing style); the best you can hope for is that the referees are not confronted with it if they don't deliberately try to. | |
| Aug 9, 2019 at 0:21 | answer | added | user2258552 | timeline score: 11 | |
| Aug 8, 2019 at 18:49 | comment | added | Anyon | Relevant (and possibly a duplicate?): How to anonymize self-citation of source code repository in IEEE double blind peer review? | |
| Aug 8, 2019 at 18:09 | answer | added | anjama | timeline score: 17 | |
| Aug 8, 2019 at 15:41 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Aug 8, 2019 at 9:23 | comment | added | darij grinberg | @FedericoPoloni: Good point!! Better solution: Zenodo hosts snapshots of GitHub repos, and they can be accessed by IDs that don't include the author's name (at least not visibly); so that might be the right thing to do (for long-term preservation reasons as well). | |
| Aug 8, 2019 at 9:21 | comment | added | Federico Poloni | @darijgrinberg Link shorteners should never be included in a submitted manuscript, because they allow the author to track who accesses the linked resource. If the author can see in their logs that someone from the network of the Technical University of Sikinia clicked on their link, it's easy to guess who the referee is. | |
| Aug 8, 2019 at 9:02 | comment | added | darij grinberg | @user2768: Usually, referees don't look up such citations until they already have read much of the paper. Even so, link shorteners can help (just make sure to remove them before the final version). | |
| Aug 8, 2019 at 9:00 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackAcademia/status/1159388897358635008 | ||
| Aug 8, 2019 at 8:53 | comment | added | user2768 |
@darijgrinberg Writing, "Our code is available on GitHub: https://github.com/AuthorName," seems like rubbing the authors' identities in the referees' faces, noting the GitHub repo...identifies one of us [by] the username in the url.
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| Aug 8, 2019 at 8:38 | comment | added | darij grinberg | Is this something that you suspect will be a problem, or is it already a problem (e.g., the editors declined your paper)? In the first case, I suggest not worrying. My impression with double-blind reviewing is that it operates on the "honors code"; the veil of author anonymity is easily broken and editors are well aware of that. The point of double-blind is to avoid rubbing the authors' identities in the referees' faces, not to completely rule out the possibility of them discovering them. | |
| Aug 8, 2019 at 8:19 | answer | added | user2768 | timeline score: 17 | |
| Aug 8, 2019 at 7:33 | answer | added | Federico Poloni | timeline score: 68 | |
| Aug 8, 2019 at 7:26 | history | asked | David Roberts | CC BY-SA 4.0 |