"peer review" style of moderation

[Dick Dunn]

In the midst of the r$ fray, mrm at sceard.Sceard.COM (M.R.Murphy) suggests:

> Another way (not the only way :-) is to handle moderation of source and binary
> groups in the same way that refereed journals handle a similar problem. Have the
> moderator farm out the submissions to a group of interested folk...

This strikes me as one of the few possibly-useful suggestions I've seen.  I
review journal articles fairly often, and I've seen that the system can
support a heavy load.  (To be fair, I *haven't* been in the editor's
chair.)  If you've got a good group of people available to draw on, you can
get folks with special interests who can pay particular attention to the
details of what they're reviewing.  You can get more than one person to
look at stuff, as a sanity check.  And you can smooth over busy periods for
the reviewers.  (Editor asks reviewer "Can you handle this?  If so, have it
back to me in n weeks."  No response is the same as a negative response,
meaning "no, can't do it now."  Editor keeps trying 'til there are
reviewers set up, then waits for response.  Editor's job is somewhat more
boring, on average...but much less demanding.)

To answer an obvious question that some of you are itching to reply/follow
up with, "yes, I would be willing to be such a reviewer."  That's one
reason I think it would work and might be worth a try--the reviewer's task
is one that I can see myself taking on.  (Plus it would probably be a
damned sight more interesting than some of the journal submissions I've
seen!:-)

OK, so let's ask:
	- Is there any glaring flaw in Murphy's idea?
	- How many folks would be willing to contribute at the "reviewer"
	  level?
-- 
Dick Dunn     rcd at ico.isc.com -or- ico!rcd       Boulder, CO   (303)449-2870
   ...Mr. Natural says, "Use the right tool for the job."