Could I suggest you add a ‘permanent’ subtitle to the press releases spelling out that it is a press release and your intent with presenting it? “We offer the press release below for commentary from those with appropriate expertise” so some such - whatever reflects your aims.

I think you should take the confusion from others as a sign that you are not making you intent clear. The reason I suggest a subtitle (rather than some other location for placing this commentary) is so that it more likely to be read by those in a rush. Footnotes or sidebars are liable to be missed.

I plan on placing an Image sticker on the first line of each press release indicating whether I think it's good, bad, or questionable.

Don’t take this badly, I don't think this will quite do it. (At least not for me!) I think you need to explain the purpose of presenting them. I'm not saying the idea is bad — I think it’s an interesting approach — but I think you need to make it quite clear to someone who bumps into one of your press releases with no other knowledge just what is happening.

Another way of looking at it, is that it might be confused for “just another” rating system, that so many sites have, without clueing readers into that you are meaning more that just pasting up the PRs.

(Nice choice of comment editor, by the way. Wouldn't mind seeing this over our way!)

David Kroll ran a thoughtful commentary on press releases last week (which btw, had nothing to do with LabSpaces). The thing is, it's not often about good science vs. bad science. It's often more about good science that's been sensationalized to garner more attention. The science is placed well-behind context that overextend the conclusions and applications of the work. In this regard, having good, bad, and meh labels might not be sufficient. How would you classify good science that's over-hyped or placed in the wrong context? I do think there should be some sort of system in place to flag bad/unvalidated work, but there are subtleties that also need to be considered.

I think that a tagline on the PR pages like Grant brings up is a great idea, in addition to the rating. I think that it is important to be explicity that press releases DO NOT necessarily correctly present the science objectively. This may seem obvious to me (a scientist), but I think that it should be more clearly indicated if the goal is to engage  non-scientists in the discussion.

Obviously way behind the times on what's going on here...I think this is a great idea too, Brian, just got there a little late on the blogger forum. ;)

I suggest that there is zero role for posting press releases.  None of the arguments for doing so that have been given hold water.

They are basically (unpaid?) advertisements.

Certainly that is probably where we will end up, but just consider:

Press releases are written by institutions to promote.  They are not designed to educate, but to draw eyes to screen/paper.  They are inherently biased---by design.

The only non-deceptive way to present them is with a big "THIS IS AN AD" tag on them.  The best use of press releases is as a starting point for a larger article on a topic.

I think you're being a little overdramatic. They're not all that bad and the ones that are can easily be picked out and will be labeled by me as either "questionable" or "bad" depending on the severity of the hyperbole.  There are many aspects of the press releases that could be discussed from the science to the way the science is presented.  We already have examples of good discussions that have resulted from the press releases, so I think they certainly have value as starting points.

Once I get the rating system in place I'll ahve a apge that explains everything :)  It's a busy week in lab though!