# Peer Communities In

The Peer Commuities In organization (PCI) and the Peer Community Journal, a diamond open access journal, have considerable overlap with *The Unjournal* model. They started out (?) as a "recommendation system" but now have established the PCI Journal to "publish unconditionally, free of charge, exclusively, immediately (as soon as possible) \[and on an opt-in basis] . . . any article recommended by a PCI." [Each PCI has its own policies](#user-content-fn-1)[^1].

Especially relevant to *The Unjournal* are these aspects of their program:

* The standard "recommender" model has an approved recommender volunteer to play the role of managing editor for a paper and make the decisions; authors are consulted to recommend reviewers.
  * This might bring up concerns about conflict of interest, e.g., I become "recommender" for a friend or for the stuff that supports my agenda.
* There are 17 "Peer Communities in" (i.e., research areas)—mainly in life sciences (some seem to have just started; there are no public preprints up).
* Authors must [*submit* work.](#user-content-fn-2)[^2]
* They (opt-in) "publish" the article rather than being an "overlay journal," to improve their indexing possibilities (but this is opt-in; you can also submit elsewhere and there are "PCI-friendly" journals).
* They depend on volunteer evaluations.
* Their evaluation is 0/1 and descriptive rather than quantitative.

[^1]: Are there overall constraints on these?

[^2]: At least, this is appears to be the case.