Here's the introduction of a blog post on totallysynthetic.com about the popular total synthesis target, platensimycin:

Antibiotic… blah blah… Merck… Nicolaou… other synthesis covered…

Yep, you all know about platensimycin, and half of you have probably worked on / are working on syntheses of this ‘popular’ target. Eun Lee hasn’t bothered with a full total synthesis, instead satisfying a neat formal of the right-hand ‘cage’ motif. Key to this was the optimisation of a substrate for a rhodium catalysed carbonyl-ylide cycloaddition.

In tone, this is pretty informal; but in content, it's a hybrid of peer review and a review article, produced by a working scientist for the hell of it, for the kudos, and as a byproduct of their own literature review. This isn't new, as such - the same thing's gone on in department tearooms forever - but the Internet gives every scientist, or at least every scientist who's so inclined, a megaphone.

And that can mean, sometimes, "peer-review" by virtual pitchfork-wielding mob, whether justified or not. From The Chem Blog:

Bad news bears (VIP: Total Synthesis and Structure Assignment of (+)-Hexacyclinol). James La Clair’s precious and dubious synthesis of Hexacyclinol, the vaulted controversy detailed here, here, here and here (Update: here) appears to be reheating. Scott D. Rychnovsky’s reassignment of the original structure of Hexacyclinol, which appeared after La Clair’s first ‘synthesis’ of the structure, made waves when it became somewhat obvious that either in La Clair’s solo authorship of his Angew paper he totally made up the already improbable synthesis (he had the help of the Bionic Bros) or Rychnovsky was simply wrong. It now appears that John Porco’s group made the compound to prove his point. I gave James the benefit of the doubt, and this currently being based off a ‘news blip’ I still will not rescind that benefit but I’m growing much more concerned as Rychnovsky’s reputation is as credible as one can get. (Porco too, of course)...

Serious, referenced, semi-permanent archives of arguments at Internet speed!