uwrite - we're scientists here so the only concern is whether something is useful (i.e. matches the model and allows prediction of future events). Is science useful?- well you are presumably using a computer...

Ben - its a question of who you think are peers. I could turn every one of your criticisms (which are all valid) around and apply them to traditional journal peer review. With one addition - you don't even know who these "peers" are. You get many of the same problems in peer reviewed science, just that these problems are hidden.

I agree there are issues, and particularly with much on Wikipedia not necessarily being written by the people us "experts" would choose but again I would turn that around - the more people engage fully with the process and don't just expect our position to be automatically respected the more the content will improve. The people who have done the initial work are invested and have put in an effort and worked within a system - we need to learn and work within that system - and if necessary argue for change.

But for me the key thing is the recognise that we don't choose our peers for our own convenience. This is precisely what is wrong with the way we conduct science at the moment in my view.

Claudia - do they actually have many submissions? There has been talk of taking a similar approach in the EMBO journals, a free for all database with promotion to higher stature in the EMBO journal itself and the Frontiers journals are taking a similar tack. My impression is that mainstream scientists are very wary of "different" peer review processes though. You only need to look at PLoS ONE, which has a very traditional process in practice, to see that.