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I understand that the goals of research code are very different from prod. code, and I suppose that the reviewers would have to tailor their review towards verifying the integrity of the results presented, rather than code quality in and of itself.

Criticism would be moderated through the journal editor, as with typical review comments.

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I think that's key (and I agree it would be good) - the review would have different goals/qualities in mind: more 'does the code do what you claim it does' and less 'am I going to be able to maintain this' (because probably nobody is going to maintain it and that's fine).

Considering how much of a pain journal editors are to deal with already in terms of text formatting, the absolute last thing needed is trying to turn them into code reviewers/meta reviewers. The pool of editors who are both competent in their scientific/technical field and competent software engineers is nonexistent - almost everyone with that combination of skills is working in the private sector and has no desire to wade into journal editing.

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