Reviewers are the band. Publishers were just the ticket scalpers.
Track 01 — The rig is rigged
Here is the deal scientific publishing offers you: you do the research, often with public money. You write the paper. Your peers review it — unpaid, on nights and weekends, because rigor matters to them. Then a publisher charges you an article-processing fee that commonly runs from $1,000 to $12,000, sells access back to the very institutions that funded the work, and books operating margins that major publishers have reported in the 30–40% range. The people who created and verified the knowledge get the bill. The intermediary keeps the profit.
That is not a marketplace. That is a toll booth on a road you built.
Track 02 — Reviewers are the band
Peer review is the product. Everything else is distribution, and distribution went free two decades ago. So Review Slave is built around the reviewers: vetted volunteer scientists who review because rigor is the whole game. We don't pay them — and neither does anyone else — but here, the work stops being invisible.
- Every completed review receives a citable identifier and lives permanently on the reviewer's public Crew Card.
- Reviews are signed and public by default (anonymity remains available where candor requires it).
- Review records certify like albums: Bronze, Silver, Gold. Portfolio items, not free labor tossed into a publisher's inbox.
Track 03 — No ransom. Ever.
Submitting is free. Review is free. Publication is free. Reading is free. There is no author tier, no “premium visibility,” no page charges, no paywall. If we cannot afford to run something without charging scientists, we do not run it. This pledge is permanent and non-negotiable.
Track 04 — Rigor is the riff
Attitude is the costume; precision is the instrument. Our editorial standards are aligned with COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) guidance:
- Mandatory conflict-of-interest disclosure from every author and every reviewer, every time.
- Clinical, human-subjects, or animal research is blocked at submission without an ethics/IRB approval statement. Not warned. Blocked.
- Structured reviews with explicit recommendations and severity flags for ethical concerns, escalated to editors.
- A public, versioned record: every revision, every response, every decision letter stays visible after decision. Corrections and retractions happen in the open.
- Published material is research, not medical advice — and every paper page says so.
Track 05 — The Amp: your deal, your money
Some peer-reviewed work can become products, licenses, or companies. The old system takes a cut at every step. We don't take one at any step: The Amp screens accepted papers for commercial potential and brokers introductions to partners, licensees, and funders — and when revenue is generated, every dollar of it belongs to the researchers. No success fee, no equity, no percentage. We are the roadies of your deal, not a party to it.
Track 06 — The Patronage: who pays for this?
Fair question — free platforms usually mean you're the product. Here is our entire business model, with nothing behind the curtain: Review Slave is funded exclusively by voluntary donations from researchers whose work succeeded after passing through this platform. Made it through the pit, landed the license, got the grant, built the company? You can choose to become a patron and keep the amps on for the next band. Three things keep this honest:
- Only the successful are asked. Nobody gets a donation prompt while their career, or their manuscript, is on the line. Eligibility begins at acceptance — never before.
- Patronage buys gratitude, not influence. No editorial favors, no faster review, no softer reviewers. A patron who leans on an editor comes off the wall.
- If patronage runs short, we shrink — we don't charge. The no-fees pledge (Track 03) outranks our own comfort. Ads, APCs, and data-selling stay banned in every scenario.
Track 07 — Open everything
Papers publish under open licenses (CC BY 4.0 by default). Review records are open. Our decision criteria are open. The platform's code is open. Sunlight is the cheapest and best disinfectant science has ever had.
Hidden track — join
If you write science: submit your paper. If you can judge it: join the review crew. If you can fund or build on it: plug into The Amp. If it already worked for you: keep the amps on. And hold us to every word on this page — our code of conduct tells you how.
— The Crew