Recent discussions with some colleagues spurred me to read again Ran Canetti's white paper on double-blind reviewing in IACR conferences. I also went back to a post by Boaz Barak and to its discussion thread, as well as to this post that motivated it. I was also reminded of the coverage of single- and double-blind reviewing in this chapter of the book "The Science of Science" (see, for instance, page 25 in that file). I recommend all those resources.
FWIW, I share Ran Canetti's analysis of the pros and cons of double-blind reviewing. At the end of the day, evaluating scientific papers submitted to conferences and journals is largely a subjective exercise. IMHO, this is especially true for conferences where, apart from a number of clear accepts and clear rejects, a PC typically has to choose a small number of papers from a typically much larger pool of "scientifically equivalent" articles.
Double-blind reviewing and rebuttals are two ways in which our community tries to make the process of selecting a good programme for a conference---which is, after all, the job description of a conference PC---more objective than it really is. However, I keep wondering whether those steps make a difference, especially in addressing bias, in an age where every scientific contribution should be available online in publicly accessible form before it is submitted to a conference. Shouldn't we simply trust the PC chairs of a conference to make sure that the refereeing process and the PC discussion are as thorough as possible, given the time constraints under which they take place?
What's your opinion on double-blind reviewing as authors, PC members and PC chairs, especially in conferences in TCS, broadly construed? Do you prefer to submit to conferences that implement double-blind reviewing? If so, why?
I'd be grateful if you could post your opinions as comments to this post.
No comments:
Post a Comment