From your post, it seems like the advantages of a new cause prioritization journal are:
-Peer review
-Articles all posted in one place
-Increased incentive for academics to write thoughtfully about cause prioritization, because publishing on the topic would become more beneficial to academics’ careers
-It might make cause prioritization more credible or mainstream
My main questions are:
-Are there any major benefits to creating a journal that I’ve missed?
-What does it take to create a credible journal? How costly would it be to the community? Are we even capable of it?
-Are there any in-between options that provide the best of both worlds? For example, could we add a peer review function to the forum (maybe posts that have been peer reviewed get a star)? Could we set up a blog that acts as a central reference point for all the work on cause prioritization and incentivizes writers to move the field forward?
Blind review is only possible with a specialized system/website. The EA forum doesn’t support math typesetting like LaTeX, and the arguments would be mixed up with all kinds of other posts. I think the best alternative to a true journal would be a community blog that hosted articles with a review system.
But not all peer review is the same, you want to have some review from people who know the relevant subjects well. E.g., a paper that relates to economic policy should be seen by economists. But if we have unpublished works on a website, I imagine it’s going to be hard to get subject matter experts outside of EA to participate in the review process.
From your post, it seems like the advantages of a new cause prioritization journal are:
-Peer review
-Articles all posted in one place
-Increased incentive for academics to write thoughtfully about cause prioritization, because publishing on the topic would become more beneficial to academics’ careers
-It might make cause prioritization more credible or mainstream
My main questions are:
-Are there any major benefits to creating a journal that I’ve missed?
-What does it take to create a credible journal? How costly would it be to the community? Are we even capable of it?
-Are there any in-between options that provide the best of both worlds? For example, could we add a peer review function to the forum (maybe posts that have been peer reviewed get a star)? Could we set up a blog that acts as a central reference point for all the work on cause prioritization and incentivizes writers to move the field forward?
Blind review is only possible with a specialized system/website. The EA forum doesn’t support math typesetting like LaTeX, and the arguments would be mixed up with all kinds of other posts. I think the best alternative to a true journal would be a community blog that hosted articles with a review system.
But not all peer review is the same, you want to have some review from people who know the relevant subjects well. E.g., a paper that relates to economic policy should be seen by economists. But if we have unpublished works on a website, I imagine it’s going to be hard to get subject matter experts outside of EA to participate in the review process.
FWIW, the EA forum does now support inline LaTeX, and I have used it in a couple of essays I’ve published here.