Robotics researcher proposes abolishing journals for never-rejecting Paper Grading Boards
tomssilver · x · 2026-11-08
Robotics researcher Tom Silver argues peer review is broken: runaway paper counts, drowning reviewers, months-long waits, and undead resubmission cycles. His radical proposal:
- End journals; keep conferences purely as low-barrier meetings
- Institute Paper Grading Boards (PGBs): expert reviewers like journals, but each paper is submitted exactly once and never rejected — every submission gets a public report card graded on novelty, predicted impact, etc.
- The key incentive: with only one grading chance, authors polish far more, slowing the field down "in a very good way"
He argues the old system conflates three jobs (improving papers, disseminating work, rewarding authors) and fails at all three; the post is a call for similarly radical reform ideas.
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