in praise of the referee (or not)

While I was editing our “famous” In praise of the referee paper—well, famous for being my most rejected paper ever!, with one editor not even acknowledging receipt!!—for the next edition of the ISBA Bulletin—where it truly belongs, being in fine a reply to Larry’s tribune therein a while ago—, Dimitris Politis had written a column for the IMS Bulletin—March 2013 Issue, page 11—on Refereeing and psychoanalysis.

Uh?! What?! Psychoanalysis?! Dimitris’ post is about referees being rude or abusive in their report, expressing befuddlement at seeing such behaviour in a scientific review. If one sets aside cases of personal and ideological antagonisms—always likely to occur in academic circles!—, a “good” reason for referees to get aggressively annoyed to the point of rudeness is sloppiness of one kind or another in the paper under review. One has to remember that refereeing is done for free and with no clear recognition in the overwhelming majority of cases, out of a sense of duty to the community and of fairness for having our own papers refereed. Reading a paper where typos abound, where style is so abstruse as to hide the purpose of the work, where the literature is so poorly referenced as to make one doubts the author(s) ever read another paper, the referee may feel vindicated by venting his/her frustration at wasting one’s time by writing a few vitriolic remarks.  Dimitris points out this can be very detrimental to young researchers. True, but what happened to the advisor at this stage?! Wasn’t she/he supposed to advise her/his PhD student not only in conducting innovative research but also in producing intelligible outcome and in preparing papers suited for the journal it is to be submitted to..?! Being rude and aggressive does not contribute to improve the setting, no more than headbutting an Italian football player helps in winning the World Cup, but it may nonetheless be understood without resorting to psychoanalysis!

Most interestingly, this negative aspect of refereeing—that can be curbed by posterior actions of AEs and editors—would vanish if some of our proposals were implemented, incl. making referee’ reports part of the referee’s publication list, making those reports public as comments on the published paper (if published), and creating repositories or report commons independent from journals…

MCMSki IV, Jan. 6-8, 2014, Chamonix (news #4)

More news about MCMSki IV! Remember, the call is still open for contributed sessions for a few more weeks, till March. 20 to be precise (make sure to contact me at bayesianstatistics@gmail.com if you are considering putting one session together). To all those who already submitted a session, thanks a lot, please stay tuned, and we will contact you very soon after March 20!

One exciting item is that there will be a satellite workshop on January 9, on Bayesian non-parametrics and semi-parametrics, organised by Judith Rousseau. BNPski, anyone?!  Details are not yet available, but anyone registered for MCMSki IV and interested should be free to attend this workshop, free of charges. (It will take place at the conference centre as well.)

Another item is that we managed to get a cheaper offer for the ski race, reaching an entry prize of 10 euros. Or less if we manage to find this sponsor… Not that bad when considering the high probability competitors have to win a pair of skis!!!

Last item for today: the list and rate of hotels available thru the conference centre is as follows

• ALPINA*** : Single Room 136€ & Twin or Double Room 106€ /pers
• PRIEURE*** : Single Room 136€ & Twin or Double Room 106€ /pers
• LOUVRE** : Single Room 85 € & Twin or Double Room 64€ /pers
• POINTE ISABELLE** : Single Room 81,90€ & Twin or Double Room 59,90€ /perss

However, many other options are available in the vicinity, from hotels to B&B, to rental apartments and chalets, with a wide range of prices if you pre-book early (like now!) See the links on our webpage.

‘gold’ open access & gold mine for publishers

Following a discussion within the IMS publication committee and the coincidental publication of a central double page in Le Monde, weekend science&techno section [not that it was particularly informative!], here are some thoughts of mine on open access and publications:

First, the EU is philosophically inclined toward Open Access and has been putting some money into the game towards that goal:

As of 2014, all articles produced with funding from Horizon 2020 will have to be accessible: articles will

either immediately be made accessible online by the publisher (‘Gold’ open access) – up-front publication costs can be eligible for reimbursement by the European Commission;

or researchers will make their articles available through an open access repository no later than six months (12 months for articles in the fields of social sciences and humanities) after publication (‘Green’ open access).

This means that putting IMS publications on arXiv or on HAL (which is compulsory for CNRS and AERES evaluations, hence for most French public researchers, contrary to what Le Monde states) is fine and sufficient for EU funded research. It seems to be the same in other countries (ok, EU is not yet a country!) like Australia…

My personnal position on the issue is that I do not understand the ‘gold’ open access perspective. Since tax-payers are supporting public-funded research, why should they support the journals that publish this research if it is available on a public depository like arXiv for free? Simply because the publication in the journals gives a validation of the scientific contents? The argument was that it would save money on public libraries subscribing to expensive journals like Elsevier‘s, but paying the ‘gold’ open access is another way of redirecting tax-payers money towards publishers’ pockets, so this sounds like a loophole… I would thus be very much in favour of keeping the arXiv solution as is, since it is the greenest one, as long as we comply with local national regulations.

MCMSki IV, Jan. 6-8 (9?), 2014, Chamonix (news #3)

In case you have not been constantly tracking the changes on the MCMSki IV webpage, here are some news: the number of invited and accepted contributed sessions in the program had considerably increased, to the point of almost filling two parallel sessions for the whole duration of the meeting. This includes an exciting round-table on MCMC software animated by Luke Bornn. We are actually discussing how to handle the incoming proposals, from adding one more track/room to the program to adding an extra morning (the morning after!) to the meeting—with the argument that participants will anyway leave on the 9th of January at the earliest—to sadly rejecting some of the proposed contributed sessions…. Nonetheless, the call is still open for contributed sessions for a few more weeks, till March. 20 to be precise (make sure to contact me at bayesianstatistics@gmail.com if you are considering putting one session together).

The registration page is not yet complete (we are still discussing the rates for the Richard Tweedie ski race, and managed to get them down to 10€ per person so far so we may not have to cancel this race, especially given the exciting (almost certain!) promise of a pair of brand new skis for the winners!, and more we can find benevolent sponsors…). Once again the conference fees will range from 100€ for PhD students to 210€ for participants not members of ISBA or of IMS. The additional fees for the banquet have also been lowered to 30 euros.

MCMSki IV, Jan. 6-8, 2014, Chamonix (news #2)

More news about the MCMSki IV conference: the three plenary speakers have been selected by the Scientific Committee:

• Andrew Gelman,
• Chris Holmes and
• Michele Parrinello

there are now eight invited or accepted contributed sessions in the program, with five more almost completed—including an exciting roundtable on MCMC software!—, the call is still open for contributed sessions or talks (make sure to contact me at bayesianstatistics@gmail.com if you are considering putting one session together, remember: there will be parallel sessions, so we are selecting sessions based solely on quality and diversity!).

The registration page is almost complete (we are still discussing the rates for the ski race!), there will be buses booked (if not free) from and to Geneva airport, and some hotels have been pre-booked. The conference fees will range from 100€ for PhD students to 210€ for participants not members of ISBA or of IMS. I take the opportunity of this tribune to launch a call for sponsors! Whether publishing, software or skiing company, having sponsors for the coffee breaks, a wine party during the poster session(s), or the ski race, would be great!!! And would lower the overall fees (whose main bulk is due to renting the conference centre…)

Looking forward the completion of the program, best Season’s greetings to all future MCMSkiers!