It’s quite odd. Despite a supposed crisis of overburdened peer reviewers, many editors of the elite journal seem unwilling to make even basic decisions on their own, without coming back to reviewers repeatedly.
This summer I have reviewed several papers where I have said something to the effect of “the authors have addressed my concerns and I encourage publication of the paper in its present form”, only to have the paper come back to me for a third or fourth time for further review.
@ct_bergstrom I have no clue why AEs relinquished their authority to make judgments and started doing this "number and respond to every comment" thing
As a reviewer, I deal with this by saying explicitly "Here are the [0 to 5] points I need the authors to address, and everything else is discretionary." Often "address X" means either fix X or explain to me why X doesn't need fixing. I assume that authors want to improve their paper and will recognize that I am genuinely trying to help them
@ct_bergstrom I think some of this is down to crappy journal software. I’m an editor on PLoS and the system makes it really hard for me to only send back to a single reviewer who had concerns and wanted to see the paper again.
@ct_bergstrom When this has happened to me, it's because some other reviewer asked for a sizable change and they want all reviewers to approve the change.
The big problem I've started having is getting to the point where I have a problem, the author disagrees and refuses to make changes, and the editor keeps sending our correspondence back and forth to the point where there's no progress in discussion. It's gotten to the point where I have to tell the editor "I don't want to see this again, you have to make a decision."
@ct_bergstrom
… maybe because on author resubmission, the journal web system defaults to sending out messages to the full rosta of original reviewers (regardless of reviewer recommendations)? And the AE lacks the technical nous or the awareness of the system to restrict the contact list?
Which wouldn’t change the frustration you rightfully experience -but implies it is less deliberate waste of time than poor design workflow (probably from a commercial product!)?
@ct_bergstrom , that's pretty maddening. I don't miss doing peer reviews, especially since I only achieved the status of getting invitations to review poor quality submissions that had been refused by more prominent members of the field.
@ct_bergstrom ...just a guess since I have absolutely no idea of the the context of which you speak... those that sent uou the work wanted a different answer, not your approval but were looking for your disagreement.
@ct_bergstrom
had there maybe been changes to address feedback from other reviewers that might have walked on the changes made to address yours?
(If I had to guess it would be that the editors were trying to account for that without themselves checking to see if it was true.)
@ct_bergstrom Contrariwise, I had an experience this summer where it became clear that the authors weren't going to budge, and so I tried to tell the editor that the decision on which of us was more right needed to be his. It was like pulling teeth to get him to let me bow out of a re-review. So odd.
@ct_bergstrom
This has become a persistent problem in the scientific literature. Editors either overstep and make unilateral decisions or they are incapable of making a decision until all reviewers are completely satisfied. It is making the whole process more frustrating than it was before.
@ct_bergstrom I've had this, too! I find myself wondering if I missed something. I just write back, saying, "I approve. Go for it." I always assumed the other reviewer has issues with it...
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