Review by Jon Howell, intentionally unblinded

Double-blinding helps reduce human bias in the academic review process, which ultimately helps science proceed on its mission with fewer detours.
  • Blinding reviewers gives reviewers the opportunity to write frank, rigorous reviews without fear of retribution.
  • Blinding authors reduces reviewer bias, unconscious or otherwise, that works against minorities or authors from less-recognized institutions.
    So why do I unblind all of my reviews? A program committee has two functions:
    1. Decide the program, which draws future researchers' attention to the chosen papers, and
    2. Provide feedback and advice to contributors.

    Both functions ultimately steer the development of a field and the community working in it. Obviously, paper selection sends a signal to participants. But program committees have the opportunity to send more than one bit of feedback at a time; that's why high-quality reviews -- especially the rejections! -- are so valuable.

    Unblinding helps establish a connection between me and the authors I'm reviewing for. If nothing else, it reminds me that my review is being written for a person. If it is to succeed in communicating, it should be helpful advice, not scathing criticism.

    Unblinding also provides me with an opportunity to clarify ambiguitiies in my review. If you have a question about my review, or want to understand how I managed to misunderstand what you wrote, feel free to ask:

    I consider these benefits to the community to be worth the risk of retribution, which is why I unblind. However, I do think that blinding reviewers with a sufficiently large anonymity set is essential, because not all reviewers have the career path and personality type that makes that risk modest for me. So take advantage of my feedback, but please be sure to glean what you can from the feedback of all of your reviewers.