The Journal of Peer Production - New perspectives on the implications of peer production for social change New perspectives on the implications of peer production for social change
Reviews (Collective capabilities for resisting far-right extremism online and in the real world) image

Review A

Reviewer: A

1) Is the subject matter relevant?

Yes

2) Is the treatment of the subject matter intellectually interesting? Are there citations or bodies of literature you think are essential to which the author has not referred?

The paper is interesting and the focus on capabilities is productive. And as far
as I can tell, the relevant literature, including very recent one, is referenced.
What is perhaps missing is a more explicit discussion on the limitations of this
approach.

3) Are there any noticeable problems with the author’s means of validating assumptions or making judgments?

One problem is the phrasing of one of the questions, namely “What do these
capabilities tell us about resisting transitions more broadly?” What exactly is
to be resisted, the (digital) “transition” more generally, or the far-right using
the transition’s potential to further their agenda? The Q suggests the former,
the main argument the latter. This imprecision appears in the paper again and
again.

Perhaps the concept of “transition” should be bit clarified. A transition implies
the change from A to B. What what is A and what is B? Or, is this seen as
something more open, an IT-enabled social transformation whose direction is
contested? The article, IMHO, focuses on one conflict over the direction of
this transformation.

4) Is the article well written?

Overall, it’s not poorly written, but sometimes it’s a bit imprecise and inelegant, impeding the flow of reading. To paraphrase David Graeber. It’s not always “kind to the reader”.

“Political and social theorist Michael Edwards highlights three ways collective life can be understood as civil society (2014).” Wouldn’t it be easier to say, “… highlights three collective dimensions of civil society.”

“Technologists have their own myth of transition, disruption (Lepore, 2014)” this could be rephrased easily to be more elegant and easy-to read, eg. “.. their own myths of transition and disruption…”

“Finally, the substantive goal of this paper has been achieved.” I would leave out such formulation, because they sound a bit self-congratulatory. It’s for the reader, not the author, to decide of the paper managed to fulfill its goals.

5) Are there portions of the article that you recommend be shortened, excised or expanded?

The introduction is takes too long to provide an overview of the article. I propose to move the section on the socio-economic crises and its consequences to section II.

The structure of the paper is a bit convoluted. It might help to move section 2.3 further up, to clarify the perspective on IT and social change. Perhaps Langdon Winner is a bit too prominent here, given that the paper is quite old.

I would structure it like this: Intro, theories of transition, sociol-political background, info on Uplift. The we have all the context we need to proceed to the actual research.

Review B

Review C