Dimensions of Filtering

If we currently suffer from a glut of information, electronic publication will only make matters worse. Reduced cost of publication and dissemination is likely to make more and more material available. This proliferation isn't necessarily bad; it simply means that the filtering tools will have to be improved.

I would argue that journals filter papers on two dimensions: interest and correctness. The first thing a referee should ask is, "is this interesting?" If the paper is interesting, the next question should be, "is this correct?" Interest is relatively easy to judge; correctness is substantially more difficult. But there isn't much value in determining correctness if interest is lacking.

When publication was a costly activity, it was appropriate to evaluate papers prior to publication. Ideally, only interesting and correct work manuscripts would undergo the expensive transformation of publication. Furthermore, publication is a binary signal: either a manuscript is published or not.

Electronic publication is cheap. Essentially everything should be published, in the sense of being made available for downloading. The filtering process will take place ex post, so as to help users determine which articles are worth downloading and reading. As indicated above, the existing peer review system could simply be translated to this new medium. But the electronic media offer possibilities not easily accomplished in print media. Other models of filtering may be more effective and efficient.