Dear Ken,
Actually I am aware of the things you have mentioned but my short email about
who was blind was perhaps not a complete communication.

If as one email mentioned it is possible to figure out who wrote a particular
paper submission because of style, subject, attitude or cited referencing, then
the referee is not blind. Who is then blind is the person who wrote the paper
if they by some sorry chance can't figure out who the referee is by the same
means.

I referred to art exhibitions because there is an acknowledgement by the fact
that the juror is named that the choice will have a certain bias. I am not
making a value judgement about bias. I am stating what I believe is human,
bias. If we give it another name we can call it passion, or viewpoint, or
understanding or knowledge. Interestingly, critics put their name to their
critiques. There is a sense of the hidden about blind refereeing - single or
double. Is it good or bad, is bias good or bad, I don't really think that's the
point. I know you are willing to put your opinion out there, so am I. We may
agree or disagree on different issues. As long as one of us doesn't have the
power to threaten the other with harm the level of our agreement or
disagreement doesn't matter. It is only when favour or harm is attached to
whether or not one is in agreement or disagreement that it becomes thorny. And
that then I think is the potential problem. Is acceptance to conference paper
delivery directly attached to conference attendance and participation because
of economic realities of modern academic life? If that is the case than the
ground get shaky. What to do about it? Well that is another issue.

In Australia there is a TV station particularly devoted to multicultural
programming. The programs are sometimes offensive to someone, either because of
their politics, or content. But the policy of SBS is to be diverse. I would be
very surprised if there was any blind refereeing going on. However, in that
case of course we have the issue of funding - government in this case. Perhaps
one hopes the politicians don't watch the station. The programs themselves
range from films, documentaries, a edgy form of sit-com, news, sports, etc.
People choose what they want to watch. And I am happy to say that the choice is
there. So. . . what's the point?

Double blind refereeing can be both criticized and praised but either way it
isn't the only thing that can happen. I find it mildly amusing that we get into
these either or views. Whatever we think, and you may hotly disagree with this,
there is more to think about than we are thinking at the moment. Expansion,
divergence, particularly in dialog, is I think much to be sought after. If
however we are getting concrete with a deadline for a decision which will need
to be made then we may need to converge on one point. I do not want to converge
just yet and settle for what has been done in the past.

Regards,
Jan

Jan Coker
Lecturer in Industrial Design
Louis Laybourne Smith School of Architecture and Design
City West Campus, North Terrace
Adelaide, South Australia 5000
Telephone: +61 8 8302 6919
Facsimile: +61 8 8302 0211
email: [log in to unmask]