Academic Freedom and Anonymous Peer Review

I thought peer review was anonymous.As I understood most journals the authors are asked to provide 2,3,4 names of people in the field who would understand the paper and be able to give effective review. The editors then choose 2,3,4 reviewers from their own list which may or may not include those recommended by the authors, reviewers of like expertise in the field. The reviewer's recommendations/criticisms are sent to the authors, but the reviewer's identity is not revealed.The authors can then change their submission in line with the reviewers comments or pen an explanation of why they did what they did back to the reviewers and the process starts again. This back and forth, through the editors, continues until the reviewers give a final recommendation to the editor or the author's retract the paper.In all this the authors are (as I thought I remembered) unaware of who the reviewers are.Has this changed?[abe]From Wiki:

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Starting in the 1990s, several scientific journals (including the high impact journal Nature in 2006) started experiments with hybrid peer review processes, often allowing the open peer reviews in parallel to the traditional model. The initial evidence of the effect of open peer review upon the quality of reviews, the tone and the time spent on reviewing was mixed, although under open peer review, more of those who are invited to review decline to do so.

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So what's the big deal with this PubPeer? If this (so called) author wants to sue them for anonymous reviewers he will likely have to sue the major journals as well. Who is this fool?[/abe] Edited by AZPaul3, : more

From the Retraction Watch site: Scientist sues PubPeer commentersThe article makes some good points itself but the comments are where most of the real details are given.I did not realize PubPeer was an open forum, like this one, where any member (actual scientists, please - tho how PubPeer vets those members I have no idea) can start a discussion on any paper and others can join in as they wish. No one is "invited" to be a reviewer, you just jump in, and I get the impression there are no restrictions or requirements on your credentials within the field being discussed.My read:- Dr. S had a number of papers called into question on the site. Data analysis, data integrity being issues.- Dr. S applied and was accepted into a position at a school. He quit his old school and had a specific start date for the new school.- Some unknown party sent e-mail copies of the messages on PubPeer to people at the hiring school.- The school rescinded its employment acceptance before the start date citing the PubPeer threads as reason because, Seems to me the new school may be liable for breach of their employment offer (iffy) and the anonymous e-mailer may be accused of libel (again, iffy).PubPeer.com did not create this controversy. They only provided the platform for others to use to "peer review" scientific papers (from elsewhere, anywhere) and to discuss controversies in scientific and academic conduct/misconduct.If (my most lovely lady) Faith should write in this forum that I am ignorant of the bible and am want to intentionally misrepresent the intent of its scripture and thus I am on my way to hell because I am an atheist, commie, fascist pig with ugly thinning hair and bad breath - in order to track her down and SLAPP her silly should I sue Percy to get her name, address, phone number?Like Dr. S, I would be pissed (sorta) but is that Percy's fault?