Feature suggestion: Simplify or remove the rating system
Created by: s.g.ribault
Reviewers are currently asked to rate articles in 6 areas: Validity, Significance, Originality, Clarity, Formatting, Grammar. For each area, there is a rather large number of possible marks. Such fine-grained ratings are difficult to interpret for authors, reviewers and readers. To compound the issue, an article can have different ratings depending on the reviewer and on the version.
Little would be lost by removing this system. However, here are suggestions for improving it:
- Have only 3 areas rather than 6: Validity, Importance (replaces Significance and Originality), Clarity (includes Formatting, Grammar).
- Have only 4 possible marks in each category. Give clear and explicit descriptions of these marks: for example the top Validity mark could be described as "I am certain that the main results are true".
- Have authors rate their own articles.
- When the article is published, have the editor in charge give final ratings, and display these ratings prominently next to the article's title. (Using if possible a concise graphical representation of the ratings.)