Forum FAQ
Here we answer some commonly asked questions about the discussion forum. If you have any further questions or concerns, do not hesitate to contact us.
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE FORUM?
We created the forum to facilitate discussion about the peer review system in economics in general, and the ideas presented in our report in particular. The 'open questions' section of the forum was created for users to discuss the open questions posed by our report. Other discussions can be held in the 'additional discussions' section. We do not necessarily endorse all proposals in the report and invite participants to discuss the implementability and desirability of each one.
HOW LONG WILL THE FORUM EXIST?
We do not intend to keep the forum open forever. Our initial plan is to host the forum for six months after the report release date. If substantive discussion is still ongoing at that point, we will consider extending the duration of the forum. We will not store user data or emails after it is deleted, but we will preserve the public discussions.
Do i need an account to participate?
It is possible to start participating immediately, even without creating an account.
To be able to engage with all of the content, the creation of an account is necessary.
- Anonymous users can participate by replying to posts.
- However, anonymous users cannot delete or edit their response after replying to a post.
- They also cannot make their own threads in any section.
- Finally, they cannot upvote/downvote others' posts, vote in polls, or message other users.
To be able to engage with all of the content, the creation of an account is necessary.
- This requires providing an email address. Regarding questions about signing up, data usage, and privacy, see the relevant FAQs.
- The main benefit of creating an account, other than the additional features, is the ability to accumulate recognition under one username. This means that each user's entire post, reply, and like history will be visible to other users.
- Users with accounts can access all of the features that anonymous users cannot, as listed above.
HOW DO I SIGN UP?
- First, visit the forum at evalresearch.weebly.com/discussion.html.
- In the top right, the 'sign up' button brings you to a page asking you for a username, email address, password, and for your acknowledgement that you agree to abide by the forum terms and rules. There is no requirement that you provide an institutional email address or any address that would reveal your identity.
- Once this is done, you will be asked to verify your email address. If you do not receive an email requesting verification, check your spam folder.
- Once email verification is complete, the administrators will be asked to approve your account. In general, we will approve your account unless we have reason to believe that your account is being created for some purpose that goes against our terms and conditions.
IF I SIGN UP, WHAT WILL BE DONE WITH MY DATA?
- The email address that you provide will not be publicly available to other users. It will be available to administrators, but we will never share or use this information for any purpose.
- User IP address is also visible to administrators and not to the general public. Once again, we will never share or use this information.
- As mentioned elsewhere, we plan to save records of all public discussion and voting that occurs on the forum, as it may be useful for future endeavors in peer review.
WHAT TYPE OF BEHAVIOR IS ACCEPTABLE ON THE FORUM?
Treat each other with respect. You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use this forum to post any material which is
- knowingly false, defamatory, and/or inaccurate;
- abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, or sexually oriented;
- threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or in violation of any law;
- copyrighted, unless the copyrighted material is owned by you or by this forum.
WHAT TYPE OF MODERATION OF FORUM CONTENT WILL OCCUR?
There are three main types of moderation that will occur:
Repeated or sufficiently grave violations of our rules may result in being banned from the forum.
- Community moderation. If you feel that a posted message is objectionable, contact us immediately. We have the ability to remove objectionable messages and we will make every effort to do so within a reasonable time frame, if we determine that removal is necessary.
- Algorithmic moderation. Posts that are likely to contain content against the rules are automatically flagged by the forum.
- Active monitoring. We will regularly monitor the forum to identify and remove posts that violate our terms of participation.
Repeated or sufficiently grave violations of our rules may result in being banned from the forum.
HOW CAN I SEARCH FOR PARTICULAR TOPICS THAT INTEREST ME?
If you have a general topic you want to read about or discuss, the forum's search function should help you. On the main forum page linked above, click the "Search" button with a magnifying glass icon next to it. A search interface will come up. Then you can type e.g., 'revisions' into it and it will bring up all threads where that search term is mentioned.
HOW DOES VOTING IN POLLS WORK?
Most of the discussion threads that we created have a poll asking users to register their opinion. Keep the following in mind before voting:
- You can only select one of the mutually exclusive options listed in the poll.
- You cannot change your vote.
- Individual usernames and their voting choices will not be made public and are not accessible to administrators.
HOW CAN I CHOOSE WHICH CONTENT I RECEIVE EMAILS AND NOTIFICATIONS FOR?
- First, visit the forum at evalresearch.weebly.com/discussion.html and log in with your account.
- In the top right, click the colored square with a capital letter inside of it (should be the first letter of your username). Click 'Settings' in the dropdown menu.
- Scroll down to the 'Notifications' section. Currently, the default is that you will receive email and web notifications for all content.
- Uncheck the boxes corresponding to the content that you don't want notifications for.
CAN I SHARE FORUM CONTENT EXTERNALLY E.G., ON TWITTER OR FACEBOOK?
Yes, the forum facilitates this. Find the topic thread or post that you want to share externally. If you hover over the text of the post, a downward facing arrow will appear in the top right corner. Click it and one of the dropdown options will be a 'Share' button. If you click this, options for sharing will appear on your screen.
HOW DO REPUTATION SCORES WORK?
Reputation scores are calculated as the difference between the number of likes a user has received on their topics and posts and the number of dislikes they have received. A user with no likes and no dislikes will have a reputation score of 0. A user with more dislikes than likes will have a negative reputation score.
WHY CAN'T I DOWNVOTE POSTS YET?
Forum settings require that users attain a reputation score of 2 before being able to dislike others' posts. See the above FAQ about reputation scores for more information.