Talk:Gatekeeper

Untitled
Originally from the article:

For example, ABC's series Desperate Housewives'' was turned town by Fox, CBS, NBC, HBO, Showtime, and Lifetime. This just proves how difficult gatekeeping in the television network is and how important management and personnel actually is. ABC has to have to prime personnel to see that Desperate Housewives would be such a big hit.''

I removed the above because it seems to me very much like original research. Although ABC certainly has benefited from Desperate Housewives, it does not follow that they have great gatekeepers; it may be that they just got lucky, or that some form of the wisdom of crowds would be better than gatekeepers at choosing what to show on television. Overall, I think that the article has a very pro-gatekeeper POV, while it's not at all clear that gatekeepers are as useful as might be thought. I don't have a copy handy, but Loren Pope's writing regarding various experiments in selecting incoming college classes randomly among applicants who meet some minimum criteria would be another POV regarding gate keepers (namely, that for academic admissions, they don't actually provide value for either the academic institution or the applicants). - RedWordSmith 19:51, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

RedWordSmith wrote, "Overall, I think that the article has a very pro-gatekeeper POV, while it's not at all clear that gatekeepers are as useful as might be thought." I definitely agree with this. Shouldn't there be a section devoted to "Criticism of gatekeepers"? Chairease (talk) 06:50, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Climate Science example
Editor ThePowerofX removed the following from "Academic peer review," commenting: " Remove conjecture unsupported by reliable source"


 * For example, climate scientist Judith Curry discussed what she sees as gatekeeping behavior at Geophysical Research Letters, in rejecting a 2010 manuscript, "Assessing the consistency between short-term global temperature trends in observations and climate model projects," by Patrick J. Michaels, John Christy, Lucia Liljegren, James Annan, and other coauthors: Cite: Draft paper by Michaels et al., 2010 "I asked to see the reviews. I suspected gatekeeping by the editor and bias against the skeptical authors by the editor and reviewers." Unusually, James Annan was a first-round reviewer, and "signed on as a co-author after helping them solve some issues noted in the first set of reviews. The second round of review consisted of 4 reviewers, none of which supported publication." Curry concluded that, "Three years later, it seems pretty obvious and widely acknowledged that climate models have been unable to correctly capture the earth’s surface temperature evolution over the past several decades." Cite: Peer review: the skeptic filter by Judith Curry, September 19, 2013

This is opinion by a respected professional, and seems a reasonable example of, as noted, "what she sees as gatekeeping behavior.". The reference cited is certainly a RS for her opinion. Please discuss. Thanks, Pete Tillman (talk) 03:44, 12 January 2014 (UTC)


 * She is not a widely respected figure by any stretch of the English language. NASA's Gavin Schmidt, a scientist who is held in high esteem, has accused her of spreading falsehoods. James Annan, one of the reviewers that Judith mentions, has criticised her in the most withering terms. Curry finds herself increasingly marginalised and many of her claims, vague and unsupported, lie at the extreme end of the spectrum. If she were a widely respected figure then we might consider elevating her suspicions to this article, if reported by enough sources with a track record for reliability. As matters stand, her claims are highly contentious and I believe we should pick instances that are well supported and beyond dispute, ignoring examples that could be sensed as advancing an agenda. — TPX 13:02, 12 January 2014 (UTC)