I don’t referee for Elsevier for reasons people here probably know (they extract large amounts of money from science). But they still send me requests. They come from a no-reply email address. And I refuse to use the anonymous yes/no link because I can’t engage with them and let them know my reasons. So the request just sits there for a week or two until it times out. So, I’m sorry if your paper is held up because of that. Maybe submit elsewhere? 🤷♂️
El Duvelle
in reply to Hanno Rein • • •Maybe you could tell them at least once in their form that you will not review for them ever and that they should remove your email from all their databases?
I am also anti-for profit publishers. I try not to submit there (when I have a say). But I tend to accept review request from them because reviews are a service to the authors, not to the journal... at least that's how I see it.
Albert Cardona
in reply to El Duvelle • • •For for-profit journals, the review is a service to the journal first, and only to the authors as a distant second. Because your free services will be sold to the authors for a hefty fee.
Redish Lab
in reply to Albert Cardona • • •@albertcardona @elduvelle
Most authors don't realize that the editor makes the actual decision, not the reviewers. An editor can override the reviewer (either positively [as in "I don't know what this reviewer was smoking"] or negatively [as in "I know the reviewer liked it, but I don't"]). I have seen both as both author and reviewer.
However, I don't think one should see review as service to journal so much as necessity of the system that we live in. Given that one needs publications to succeed in the "business of science" (how do you pay to put food on your table, trainees and staff to work with, and equipment in the lab?), doing your share of peer review is an important part of the ecosystem.*
We all talk about alternatives, but the system is not changing. At least not quickly. So you still need to contribute to the peer review system.
* While it is true that the need to publish in "high-impact journals" to succeed is a myth, one still needs to publish in peer-reviewed journals to succeed. No one makes a career with preprints alone.
Dan Goodman
in reply to Redish Lab • • •@adredish @albertcardona @elduvelle we, as authors, are not using peer review, we are subjected to peer review. Pre-publication peer review and the status hierarchies associated with them are a net negative to science. By science here I mean the collective creation of knowledge about the world, not the careers of some subset of scientists. It's a net negative to science because it encourages a very specific sort of work that isn't the most groundbreaking, isn't risky or challenging, and encourages authors to write papers in a way that hides their flaws.
Peer review is also a net negative to the majority of careers. Most journals that lead to a publication that has career implications reject more than they accept, and each rejection has a negative impact on someon
... Show more...@adredish @albertcardona @elduvelle we, as authors, are not using peer review, we are subjected to peer review. Pre-publication peer review and the status hierarchies associated with them are a net negative to science. By science here I mean the collective creation of knowledge about the world, not the careers of some subset of scientists. It's a net negative to science because it encourages a very specific sort of work that isn't the most groundbreaking, isn't risky or challenging, and encourages authors to write papers in a way that hides their flaws.
Peer review is also a net negative to the majority of careers. Most journals that lead to a publication that has career implications reject more than they accept, and each rejection has a negative impact on someone's career. Consequently, the system is net negative in terms of careers.
If we accept that pre publication is a net negative to science it is not only ok to not facilitate it by refusing to do peer reviews, it's a moral imperative to refuse. Now, you can agree to disagree with any part of this argument, but you should also be able to see that this is a coherent and honest way of looking at peer review, and not a lazy or self serving one. By asking someone who believes all this to do peer reviews you are asking them to act in a way that they believe will hurt science as a whole, as well as the lives and careers of the majority of scientists and potential scientists. That's not ok.
And the argument that because we submit our papers for peer review then we have to also act as peer reviewers is just a non sequitur. What's the argument here? What's the logical sequence of arguments that starts with the statement that you exist as a scientist in the current system I have to accept the harm of submitting my papers for peer review, and ends with the statement that I have to participate in imposing this harmful act on others? Does the argument hold if you change the word "peer review" for something else?
El Duvelle
in reply to Dan Goodman • • •@neuralreckoning
Hmm, doesn't this conflate "peer-review" with "acceptance/reject decision"? The two are quite different - which one are you against?
@adredish @albertcardona @hannorein
Dan Goodman
in reply to El Duvelle • • •El Duvelle
in reply to Dan Goodman • • •@neuralreckoning
ok so post-publication peer-review is fine, like with the current elife system, or reviewing preprints ? Or would you prefer having no peer-review at all?
Obviously the entire problem is tying people's livelihood with the papers they publish; this is what causes people to try and inflate, sometimes manufacture results, to try and get papers published. Do we think that if we removed that link people would either stop publishing (if they didn't care about science in the first place) or only publish good science? I'd say we'd probably sfill need peer-review even in that ideal world because nobody's perfect.
I think the original point was refusing to do peer-reviews just for for profit journals though. It seems (to me) it would be better to get authors to stop submitting to those journals in the first place. (or, ideally, fix the papers = job problem altogether). Or at least to tell the authors somehow that this is the reason why
... Show more...@neuralreckoning
ok so post-publication peer-review is fine, like with the current elife system, or reviewing preprints ? Or would you prefer having no peer-review at all?
Obviously the entire problem is tying people's livelihood with the papers they publish; this is what causes people to try and inflate, sometimes manufacture results, to try and get papers published. Do we think that if we removed that link people would either stop publishing (if they didn't care about science in the first place) or only publish good science? I'd say we'd probably sfill need peer-review even in that ideal world because nobody's perfect.
I think the original point was refusing to do peer-reviews just for for profit journals though. It seems (to me) it would be better to get authors to stop submitting to those journals in the first place. (or, ideally, fix the papers = job problem altogether). Or at least to tell the authors somehow that this is the reason why you won't review their work. Just not doing it without telling the journal or the authors why, is that going to change anything? Obviously , everyone does what they want :)
@adredish @albertcardona @hannorein
Dan Goodman
in reply to El Duvelle • • •@elduvelle @adredish @albertcardona the ideal is ongoing and open post publication peer review that is always visible from wherever you read/download the paper. The eLife model is better than the current system but still has an impact-based publication decision, and a post peer review editorial assessment decision for the version of record which determines whether it gets indexed:
elifesciences.org/inside-elife…
This means in practice eLife retains many of the problems with the existing systems. Definitely a step in the right direction though.
Reviewing preprints is great, although if those reviews are then used for publication decisions it still has many of the same problems. I think this is the case for Review Commons, and maybe PCI (might be wrong about that).
Changes to eLife’s indexing status in Web of Science and Scopus
eLifeDan Goodman
in reply to Dan Goodman • • •@elduvelle @adredish @albertcardona I think the question of whether it's for profit or not is irrelevant to me. None of my reasons are about whether or not it's done for profit. (Although I do agree that the profiteering is outrageous.)
I always explain with a note to the journal why I'm refusing, including a link to my article about it. I'm not sure I'd bother if I had to create an account specifically to do that though. So far I've only seen examples where you can decline without creating an account, or you can reply by email.
Dan Goodman
in reply to Dan Goodman • • •El Duvelle
in reply to Dan Goodman • • •@neuralreckoning oh, cool!!
@adredish @albertcardona @hannorein
Albert Cardona
in reply to Redish Lab • • •@adredish @elduvelle
Reviewing is also helpful as a scientist, makes me read more attentively and deeply. I review a lot but I choose what I want to review. And if a company requests my professional reviewing services then I reply with my honorariums. That’s business. Something else is academic societies and non-profits servicing academic communities. Then reviewing is collegial work.
#ScientificPublishing #academia