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darkmatter Journal shifted to accepting submissions subject to external peer review in 2011.¹⁾ While we remain committed to publishing 'non-peer review' work (e.g. Commons and Reviews etc.), the decision to adopt external peer review has been extensively discussed amongst the editorial team.

However, the journal aims to eschew traditional (closed) peer-review practices, because essentially they are flawed for failing to promote academic discussion and transparency of knowledge production.²⁾

Our (semi-)open peer review practices involves the following:³⁾

• Both Authors and Reviewers have the option to forgo anonymity
• External Reviewers' feedback will be published alongside the final version of the article, (and the Author has the option to make available their original submission)
• Author's have the option to respond to Reviewers' feedback, and Reviewers may wish to discuss further - if available, these comments (and relevant Editorial feedback) can also be published alongside the final version

The diagrame below illustrates the workflow of the Journal's peer review process. To summarize:

• Stage A: After Author submission (Au#1), the initial Editorial decision (Ed#1) takes place: either Acccept for Review or Reject
• Stage B: Submission are read by up to two external Reviewers (Rf), who provide feedback and indicate a recommendation: [1] Accept; [2] Minor Revisins (Accept); [3] Major Revisions; [4] Reject. The Editors based on Reviewer feedback make a decision (Ed#2) based on one of the four choices.
• Stage C: If [1] the article passes straight through to production for publication; if [2] Author is required to make minor revisions; if [3] Author is required to make major revisions; if [4] the submission is rejected. For [1] - [3] the author has the option to respond to Reviewer feedback, and particular in the situation of [3], the auhtor is encouraged to respond to feedback, (Reviewer's have the option of replying).
• Stage D: A revised version of article is submitted (Au#2), the Editors check that this is satisfactory (Ed#3), and the article can be passed through to the publication state.