Ojs 3.4.0.6 reviewer's name visible in discussions

Software Support
1

Hi all

When a reviewer was added open in round 1 in a discussion, this attribute is inherited to round 2 although the reviewer was added as anonymus. The name is visible to the author then.

The problem seems to be known but I don’t find any bug fix. I will not be able to update the version soon. Thanks

27-05-202612-37-07

3

Hello @trace .

I have confirmed this to be true, however, I’m unsure of the expectations. I can, also, see those that were anonymous in Round 1 but Open in Round 2 will still not be available for discussions in round 2. I have a few questions surrounding what you are seeing.

  1. How common is this scenario that you will be changing the visibility status of a reviewer between rounds?
  2. When you say this is known is there a ticket you are referencing? If there isn’t I think I can create one.
  3. Could you describe the exact problem? Meaning who’s perspective are you seeing the exposed reviewer from. I assumed author is the only one. Editor would be allowed to see both.
  4. There are no other roles associated with that user which would allow them permissions to view anonymous reviewers? Probably irrelevant in this case as I could reproduce it.
  5. Was the author tagged in any other discussions during the review process that might have exposed them. During review there is a field to have bits of the review accessible to the reviewer. Again most likely not an issue for this problem but trying to narrow down the scope.

Here is what I’m seeing and you can correct me where I have veered away from the scenario you are describing.

  1. Add a reviewer with Open status
  2. Login as the author and add a discussion
  3. This Open Reviewer will be seen in list of potential discussion participants
  4. Logout as the author and created a new review round
  5. Reassign the reviewer with Open status but this time change to Anonymous status
  6. Login as author and add a discussion
  7. The anonymous Reviewer is still there as a discussion participant

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The reverse of this is true for those that started in Round 1 as anonymous will continue to be anonymous in Round 2 even if you change their status to open. Meaning they won’t show up.

I have tested it on 3.4, 3.5 and 3.6(main) the issue still persists.

Oddly enough I can see the reviewer who is anonymous but when I try to create a discussion with the Reviewer I do get the correct error warning.

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4

I wrote up a requirements gathering ticket to handle this : [Discussions] | Author Workflow - mulitple pages with discussions, Reviewer anonymitity is not being established each round for author discussions · Issue #12880 · pkp/pkp-lib · GitHub

The main issue being is that the discussions doesn’t really care about what round the reviewer was anonymous in. Only that the author can send a discussion to the reviewer who was open at some point. In your scenario how would the author send a discussion to the reviewer who was open in the Round 1? I believe this option should still exist.