Timeline for Using MathOverflow to help with referee work
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
11 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jul 6, 2021 at 13:00 | comment | added | David Roberts Mod | I recall Tim Gowers once asked a question here about a certain topic that wasn't his speciality and then, lo and behold, he was later talking about a certain mathematician's work in that area, for they had just won the Abel prize. Tim was very careful to ask the question in a way that made it seem like a natural inquiry, not like he was giving away the Abel laureate in advance. Of course, he could later confess to doing this, since his lecture wasn't then a secret. | |
| Jul 6, 2021 at 1:55 | history | edited | Alexandre Eremenko | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 87 characters in body
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| Jul 6, 2021 at 0:07 | comment | added | markvs | @AndyPutman: The moderators (and some other people at SE) know the location of any poster in MO. You can ask the moderators on meta if you want to make sure. My journal would not disclose the identity of a referee with or without a court order. I am pretty sure Annals of Mathematics would not too. | |
| Jul 6, 2021 at 0:01 | comment | added | Andy Putman | @Mark Sapir: Yes, but it would require a subpoena to figure out your location from your ip address. If the law got involved and really wanted to know who referred a paper, I assume they would just contact the journal. I doubt any journal would even argue with an order from a court to divulge a referee. | |
| Jul 5, 2021 at 6:22 | comment | added | markvs | An IP address defines your location up to a few feet. | |
| Jul 5, 2021 at 4:25 | comment | added | Andy Putman | @MarkSapir: Whenever I make an anonymous post, I don't give a valid email address (the system only demands something, but you don't have to give a real email address if you don't register the account). And as long as you don't post from your university, it will be pretty hard to even figure out what city you're in from the IP address (at least if you're using a big network like e.g. Comcast). | |
| Jun 16, 2021 at 0:48 | comment | added | markvs | An anonymous account on MO is anonymous only for ordinary users of MO. Moderators know your IP, email and so on. Thus by asking a question on MO violates the privacy of refereeing. | |
| Jun 9, 2021 at 4:30 | comment | added | Alexandre Eremenko | I agree with both remarks. IF a preprint is available, of course one can discuss it with anyone. Discussion with a colleague you trust is different from a discussion n MO:-) | |
| Jun 9, 2021 at 0:52 | comment | added | Lucia | With preprints being readily available, I don't see a problem with referees discussing papers (discreetly) with others. I can imagine there being a problem if the preprint were not freely available though. Any mechanism that helps the referee understand more thoroughly whether an argument is correct or not, I think it is to be welcomed. | |
| Jun 8, 2021 at 20:12 | comment | added | Andy Putman | I'm not sure I would go quite this far. Several times when refereeing papers, I have asked colleagues/collaborators of mine for help understanding certain technical points. For many papers, there is no single person other than the author who deeply understands every input to the proofs! I don't think that you should do this in public, but for people whose discretion you trust it can be fine in the right circumstances. | |
| Jun 8, 2021 at 19:27 | history | answered | Alexandre Eremenko | CC BY-SA 4.0 |