The Blind Leading the Blind

1. The Blind Leading the Blind Prof. Short* Dr. Tall* * Names obfuscated and affiliations omitted to preserve anonymity

2. Outline The five best features of double-blind reviewing Beyond double-blind

3. Feature #1 Enables useful feedback on half-baked papers, without fear of embarrassment (keeping those under-worked PC members busy)

4. Feature #2 Slows the advancement of science to a manageable pace, by eliminating rapid dissemination of results

5. Feature #3 Allows job-seeking PhD students to allude to spectacular new results, which unfortunately they can�t talk about (regardless of whether the results actually exist)

6. Feature #4 Discourages those annoying high-impact projects with recognizable names and many-author papers that build on one another

7. Feature #5 Facilitates �flow� of ideas from authors to reviewers (without the irritating requirement of attribution)

8. But� Double-blind doesn�t go nearly far enough

9. Problem #1 Senior reviewers can intimidate the junior reviewers of a paper during discussions

10. Problem #1 Senior reviewers can intimidate the junior reviewers of a paper during discussions SOLUTION: Triple-Blind Reviewers don�t know who the other reviewers are

11. Problem #1 Senior reviewers can intimidate the junior reviewers of a paper during discussions SOLUTION: Triple-Blind Reviewers don�t know who the other reviewers are This one is real!

12. Problem #2 Authors of high-impact papers become more famous than authors of insignificant papers

13. Problem #2 Authors of high-impact papers become more famous than authors of insignificant papers SOLUTION: Quadruple-Blind Authors of published papers are anonymous

14. Problem #2 Authors of high-impact papers become more famous than authors of insignificant papers SOLUTION: Quadruple-Blind Authors of published papers are anonymous Someone (perhaps Jim Gray...) was 20 years ahead of his or her time with the 1985 �Anon et al.� benchmarking paper

15. Problem #3 System is biased in favor of authors who give great talks about their results

16. Problem #3 System is biased in favor of authors who give great talks about their results SOLUTION: Quintuple-Blind PC chair gives all the talks

17. Problem #4 Famous researchers decline to serve on PCs for second-tier conferences

18. Problem #4 Famous researchers decline to serve on PCs for second-tier conferences SOLUTION: Sextuple-Blind Conferences are anonymous � PC members don�t know what conference they�re agreeing to review for

19. Problem #5 Researchers insist on sending their best work to the best conferences, which is unfair to second-rate venues

20. Problem #5 Researchers insist on sending their best work to the best conferences, which is unfair to second-rate venues SOLUTION: Septuple-Blind Conference submissions are picked randomly from a global pool

21. Acknowledgements Thanks to � An anonymous west-coast professor with a photography habit An anonymous Midwest professor with the same first name as his (or her!) advisor from whom we �borrowed� some of these ideas (when they weren�t looking)