00:00.00 archpodnet All right? We are back at the CRM archeological podcast episode 252 and we last left off on peer review in CRM and bill I saw that you had something to say about that. 00:14.37 Bill White Yeah, because we ended right on it talking about? Ah um, how everything's about money and crm. Um, and also I pretty clearly can see how this would be ah you know, ah like ah it could turn you know, kind of friendly. Marketplace a collegiality into you know, just basically ah a pit fight because if you were a company and you're in the same county and same area and you have expertise which basically means you do the same thing and you're asked to do the peer review on someone else's I mean ah, first of all, you could. Decide that you don't like them and you know make the peer review responses particularly onerous to the point where they take a long long time many hours to address beyond the budget that's been provided for that. But also you could just decide that this is going to be the mechanism that you're going to use to monkey wrench like everybody in the whole area. So they have to raise their rates now of course that's going to come back to you and that's where I mean the severe pit fight aspect that ends up happening when you do that to someone else and they try to sandbag you with comments and the next thing you know it's not really peer review. It's just how can we force them to add like one hundred and eighty more hours onto this. 01:10.41 Heather Ah. 01:28.84 Bill White Or possibly even have to go out and do more field work. Ah, just so that they you know have to spend $100000 their own money that they have to make up on other projects that we're bidding against them on. So just it. It seems like ah unlike peer review in academia which i'm. 01:38.99 Heather Yeah. 01:46.43 Bill White You know I'm still new to academia. Hopefully I always will be I have no idea why peer review actually. In fact, exists whatsoever in academia since the comments that you get back are always you know you can totally tell that they were watching the most recent. You know version of game of thrones while they were reading through your thing and they like they have no clue what research you've ever done and you know they're just like tangently like an archaeologist who's Doug versus an archeologist who's a theorist and they were given this thing they're paid no money by the magazine. 02:10.97 Heather Yeah, yeah. 02:22.70 Bill White Ah, the journal to do the the peer review and they're like ninety days overdue so they're just slopping through it and so you can pretty clearly see that or you can also see the people who are you know, just absolutely indignant that you even wrote the thing you wrote obviously that reviewer is going to get thrown in the trash can because they're. Clearly biased against your article right? So in the case of that that doesn't actually affect my my income right? like the university is not going to suffer because they hated what I wrote on that. Ah so it's not really the same as academic peer review whereas. This could turn into kind of ah you know like a biological warfare kind of thing where you know you're infecting areas and then it's spreading and then the next thing you know everybody is just ripping each other apart on these reviews and now no one can really get any objective opinions at all. So. 03:10.14 archpodnet Yeah, yeah. 03:11.39 Heather Um, right? yeah yeah I think um for forerram you know I understand in some ways when when an agency. Does not yeah that the report original report is submitted to doesn't have any idea. Um, if if it's correct and there is there are crm companies out there that that know archeology they're good at archeology. But they don't know how to evaluate impacts. Pursuant to the regulatory loss and so that's that's part of the problem is that you know you have you have so ah archaeologists that are not experts in regulatory. Don't have a good regulatory understanding but they do know archeology and then you have. Um, you have regulatory analysts like first californiats s sewa analysts that are trying to take a report finding and create an impacts analysis within the review document the Cequi document document and. They don't know anything about archeology so you have like 3 different entities coming in that know that really know what they're doing but they're hopefully they're they're experts in their own field but they have no idea how to make all of those meld together. Um, so that it. 04:42.33 Heather So that the product in the impact analysis is appropriate. Um, that's where you know archaeologists who do have a good regulatory understanding Absolutely are are are very very valuable in Crm and hopefully start becoming more commonplace. They're not., But hopefully they do um and so you know I think the peer review is I I Actually don't think that's the purpose of the peer review the purpose of the peer review is really to cover The agency's rear end. That's really all it is um and you're right. There is. To Me. There's a conflict of interest there because if I can make another sierum company look bad through the peer review and can deteriorate the trust of the agency of of this person who of this you know entity or the company Cm company the archeologists that wrote the original report. That you know benefits me because then I can say I'm a better archaeologist therefore I should be hired by the agency next time or the agency sometimes you know just to kind of muddy this up even further. The applicants don't always have a choice in which consultant they hire to do the work. Sometimes the agency controls that and the agency absolutely controls it from the the sense of you know, most agencies have qualified County Qualifiealified Archeologist City Qualified archaeologists and so you know I haven't really seen anyone be taken off a list like that. 06:19.79 Heather Because of a poor peer review. But um, it certainly can go that direction and if people think that they can um ah degrade you know another archaeologist to elevate themselves and unfortunately people do that. And some of it's just it's spiteful. Um, some of it is you know you peer reviewed me last time you know now I'm gonna just you Wait. You know, ah instead of looking at it as an opportunity to improve as an opportunity to um to learn. You know there. There are people that. 06:47.64 archpodnet Right. 06:58.10 Heather No more than you do in general. There's always's gonna be somebody who is knows where then you do So you should yeah. 07:00.34 archpodnet Yeah, you you know I'm just curious. Um, yeah, as as you talk Heather and it's it's the limits of my own knowledge and understanding when you say the agency ah who who is that. 07:01.75 Bill White Yeah. 07:15.10 Heather So the agency is who the report gets turned into so you have agent. You have let's say I want to do work in this within the city of La so I had um a developer wants to you know, develop a piece of land in the city of La. So. 07:16.38 archpodnet Right. 07:28.41 archpodnet Um, yeah. 07:32.10 Heather The City of La is the one that has to review all the for this in this case, the archeological report their assessment the study they have to um, look at whether or not the development is going to have an impact on the environment in general. 07:37.80 archpodnet The. 07:50.10 Heather And so sometimes that gets elevated to an actual sql document Sometimes it's just from a city perspective. How is this development going to impact the environment the city in general and so studies are written for that purpose. 08:03.19 archpodnet So right? and so in this situation This example of City of L A um if I'm the peer reviewer and I and I peer review like the final report the City of L A is seeing that peer review. 08:16.60 Heather Is City out of L A many times is the one who's asked actually asking for the peer review. Yeah yeah. 08:22.89 archpodnet Gotcha Yes, it it is different than the ah the academic world. You know it's It's a it's oh, there's a lot of pitfalls in this one? Yeah bill. 08:29.92 Heather Yeah. 08:30.72 Bill White Ah, well and so then you know my next question would be are they getting better because I know that the peer review in Academia doesn't make anything better. It just basically makes you clarify stuff. You already said I mean I. 08:38.13 Heather Um, right I do think? yeah. 08:44.99 Bill White I guess in books it makes it better because someone reads all those pages and you know you do get some substantial comments. But for an article. It's like you know you didn't talk about my advisor professor when you mentioned Rhodes so you know obviously you're a fool and so then obviously all you do is just you know. 08:45.60 archpodnet Um I would. 08:53.54 Heather All right? You should cite is that? Yeah, right, right. 09:02.97 Bill White Go online download 1 of their multiple crummy articles and then just spam it in there right? because you just want to get it published. So is that what's going on here where you're like this wasn't very clear and then you're like okay, well then now I'll just make this sentence better. So. 09:05.53 archpodnet Um, are yeah oh God yeah. 09:06.30 Heather Yeah, no. 09:16.43 Heather Sometimes I I think I'm goingnna go I'm going to answer that question by by telling you how I go about doing peer reviews So which of course is the best way to do it. That's tongue in cheek. Um, so ah when when I go to. 09:24.57 archpodnet Yes, no. 09:33.57 Heather When I'm looking at a report. My main thing is number one I look at this as a friendly colleague to colleague conversation through written word where I'm trying to help my colleague um make sure that the report is the best it can be That's it. Um. I don't go in nitpick on things that don't matter and I usually separate my two I I separate my suggestions my critiques into 2 different categories 1 is does it impact the defensibility of the product of the report. Number 2 is it just a suggestion that would make it better. But if it didn't happen. It's not it's not a big deal. It's not going to the report couldn't be challenged from a regulatory side. Um, if it wasn't fixed so those are my so yeah, those are the 2 ways that I look at it and I actually categorize. And write my peer review. My peer review in that way. So I'll say this is suggested or required changes required revision suggested revisions and like I was saying before I always start my peer review to say you know this is you know this is done out of respect for a colleague and. You know wanting to to help them. Um and and it's not you know I try to make sure that it's friendly. Um, and and I lay it out there that I respect this person and and I'm only doing this to you know aside from being hired to do it I'm doing this because out of you know. 11:06.18 Bill White Okay, yeah, that rocks well I mean and so do I too because I've been ripped in half and it doesn't feel good. 11:06.61 Heather Ah, collegiality. So. 11:07.92 archpodnet Right? So Heather you're trying to say that you you're trying to say you act in good faith. Whatever um. 11:17.96 Heather Right. 11:20.10 Bill White And and like I said all I do is just evasive judo rather than actually addressing the comments because I just get pissed off but when someone does like what Heather is talking about then it does make it way better because then I do know that they want this to be better. 11:24.94 archpodnet She. 11:25.50 Heather Well. 11:34.25 Bill White And I do listen and I actually try and and it does make a better thing at the end. 11:36.67 Heather Right? And it's not it shouldn't be posturing. You know you see these peer reviews and I think also maybe in Academia It's different because peer reviews are published as like a separate thing like people see these peer reviews which even makes it uglier right? It's just uglier to me that somebody would. 11:37.30 archpodnet Bill. Yeah. 11:50.84 archpodnet A. 11:56.13 Heather Yeah I know they don't always get seen but sometimes they do and it it just makes it ugly to me. Why wouldn't you want to you know Iron Sharpens Iron we should be critiquing and trying to help each other that's part of the scientific method. But um. 11:57.25 archpodnet Yeah. 12:06.58 archpodnet Um, right. 12:11.15 Heather Not if it's being used to just be spiteful and a lot of times. That's what what you see and you know it's It's insecurity I mean it's clear when people act like that. It's because they're insecure in their own abilities. 12:20.00 archpodnet Yeah. 12:21.80 Bill White And why no I feel like sometimes it's more emotional because people are wedded to it and they think that when you make a comment of something that you overlooked or something that could actually improve it because you have your own interesting ideas in your experience. They take that as like. Ah deficiency and an attack and that they need to respond in some sort of way and so when the emotions start to flame up then I feel like people can't they can't disassociate themselves from you know, constructive statements about something that could make this much better and instead they take it personal as if. 12:39.92 Heather Oh let me. 12:51.48 Heather Right. 12:56.89 Bill White You're attacking them as an individual and then that's when it starts to get into the revenge mode of. 13:02.40 Heather what what I'm what I'm talking about is actually when somebody is the peer reviewer and they're being nasty that to me shows us ah insecurity in their own abilities like if you are the if you're the one who's reviewing and you get and you're getting nasty and you're kind of getting off topic and. And trying to find things that aren't really there just for the sake of tearing somebody else down that to me is an insecure move move. Um, and of course when you're being peer when you're being reviewed nobody likes to see a critique of their work. You know, just it's ah it's a natural thing. You have to kind of sit back and say okay hold on a second. Let's just read this again, remove myself and the fact that I wrote it and really see is this a fair comment and I try to do that when I get peer reviewed and you know what I don't I don't just look at this to me I say okay this is another opinion. This person is giving. And sometimes it's correct and sometimes it's not and so there are many times where I then now talk about expanding the budget I now have to do a response to the peer review and I say you know to me if it's just something that's minor and they want it done. Whatever it. That's fine. There's no skin off my nose to change this or that. But if it's wrong out and out wrong then I put a response in that I don't do it I don't make that revision. So um, yeah. 14:27.87 archpodnet Cool with that. We will continue this discussion on the flip side.