Examples of bad peer review and why it is damaging to researchers

It doesn't seem likely that the state of affairs lamented in this article is going to improve unless the incentives for reviewers to write high-quality reviews are increased. Making the reviews public and allowing reviewers to sign them does provide such an incentive, which is one of many good arguments for a transition to open, post-publication peer review (for more information, see http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fncom.2012.00094/full and https://futureofscipub.wordpress.com/2009/02/12/open-post-publication-peer-review-full-argument/).

As part of the AHRC Academic Book of the Future project, colleagues and I at the University of Stirling have also been investigating peer review. We've published the report 'Peer Review in Practice' in beta version at http://peerreviewproject.uk/peer-review-in-practice/ We're keen to get feedback on this report, so we encourage anyone interested in the subject to add comments (it should be easy, but please use the contact email on the url if there are any problems).

It is clear to me, from the comments that many "reviewers" make, that they do not understand the subject matter at all. At that stage, one loses confidence in the journal itself, no matter how high the impact factor is.