Is this a worthwhile idea? Will it work?

Pros

- Authors receive feedback/comments on their papers.

- Reviewers stand to enhance their reputations by offering insightful feedback.

(This supports the first point, as meta-ratings provide an incentive to give quality feedback.)

- Readers end up with a searchable database of cutting-edge philosophical research, complete with a (rough) metrics of quality, to help find especially interesting and important new papers.

(N.B. This benefit depends upon the participation of a sufficient number of authors and reviewers.)

Cons

- Participation requires some time and effort, to review others' papers.

(But hopefully this is worth it in order to receive others' feedback on your own papers in return!)

- Ratings may be biased by 'alliances' of friends, etc.

(Though this may be mitigated by public reviews subject to outsiders' meta-ratings.)

-Will journals respond positively to submissions that had their initial presentation online?

"Desiderata"

PhilReview is indirectly developed from several discussions amongst bloggers, and the evaluations here are based in part on editors' incorporation of these views.

Henry @ Crooked Timber: "any alternative means of dissemination [ought to] provide some sort of credentialling that is acceptable for purposes of internal review," and, "the alternative mechanism [ought to] provide some analogue to the kinds of focused criticism that we get (when we are lucky) from anonymous reviewers."

Richard @ Philosophy, etc: "take this informal process [amongst local collegues], and expand and enhance it by means of appropriate online infrastructure."

Genius: "basically students and in particular academics would put their draft papers on the site and people would post information against those drafts that they think will improve them and make them fit for publication (or an A)."

One of the oldest and most sustained discussions on the possibility of PhilReview can be found on Brian Leiter's blog, with extensive comments, posted on Sept 9 and August 28 of 2007.

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