In one of my last research papers submitted to a conference to be held the next year, in which I have spoken about some quality elements of research, including peer-reviews, one of the unknown reviewers - the second in a list of two - has strongly argued that:

"Let me be very clear that I do not give the authors permission to publish my comments on this paper!"

I find this statement very ridiculous, as I think that there is even not a unique possibility to ask permission to an unknown person. Can you, please, say me if I am right or wrong and why?

I think there is another special issue in peer-reviews as several reviewers take no the due time to do their job and, as a result, they tell very strange things in their reviews, joking with the time, energy, and efforts that everyone of us as paper writers has spent.

As a flagrant example among so many, I may cite the fact that in another submitted paper for the same conference I talked about the quality elements of data used in ranking, for instance, where currency is a useful one, while the unique reviewer has considered that I made an error, writing this sentence: "Please correct – “up to date” for currency in 6.3. you may also use the opposite “obsolete”. Currency or foreign currency is US Dollar, British pound etc.". What can we do other than claiming such stupidities? And, how do we react when no claims are permitted as the committee decision is considered without further appeal?

Look, if you do academic research you're probably going to get some crappy reviews. Don't worry about it. Reference from journals should include comments from the journal's editor, telling you what s/he takes to be serious issues arising. And what you might ignore. If that isn't provided, it's a rubbish journal. Move on....

Conferences are a bit different. They tend to come with some politics attached. But even her their should be oversight of, and comments on any negative reviews from an overseer (Chair, or something). No? Then is a crap conference. Junk it.

When people shirk their responsibilities, you have to leave them behind.

Christopher NOCK

I agree with Christopher, except where he says "Conferences are a bit different. They tend to come with some politics attached." I'd say journals have the same problem, perhaps worse. Any time you have an organization with which you must contend, you have artificial hurdles ... cliques ... schools of thought which preclude others. I have refereed for various statistics journals and for theses, and tried to be fair and helpful where needed. But I know that does not always happen. I submitted a paper where a referee made a comment saying I was wrong, where in reality the referee was demonstrably, even comically wrong, for a well respected journal. So, it happens.

I think another problem may be a shortage of the number of people willing to be referees compared to the number of papers submitted.

ResearchGate itself, however, may be a good informal outlet, but not if you then want to publish somewhere else that does not permit it.

Well, if you're careful about what I say, I'm Only talking about high quality journals with excellent editors. I've have been told on three occasions (when I was starting out) to ignore biased references, and the editors disregarded them.

Christopher NOCK

Dear #Christopher and #James. I thank you very much for your valuable comments.

But, please, take a look to my specific question: should we need permission to disclose any peer-review made by unknown persons? I know, my question is a little bit rhetoric, that is, it has its answer implied in it, in my opinion. However, I made this explicit question to be sure that my opinion is not only mine, as I am struck a few days ago, so very recently, by such a peer-reviewer arguing - as I said in my first answer - that "Let me be very clear that I do not give the authors permission to publish my comments on this paper!", which I find ridiculous for the reasons I elaborated above.

Krenar -

If someone told me not to disclose their comments, I don't think I would, but you could register a complaint with the journal editor.

Christopher -

As I said, it was a "high quality" journal. The editor passed the comment on to me. These things happen. If it is an area requiring special knowledge, the editor may not know any better.

Well, I can't question your experience. But it's not mine. I guess it depends on how you define the quality of a journal. In your case the editor should have found another expert in the subject area. Let's just agree to differ on this one.

NOCK

I've said let's agree to differ on this one. That gives you the benefit of any doubt. Please be happy with that. The matter is of no real interest to me whatsoever.

NOCK

My deep belief is that if one takes the responsibility to be a peer-reviewer either in journals or conferences they should also be responsible and academically honest in their reviews. And this should be done in such a way that no one fears to disclose their opinions expressed in any review. Because, and this is also my deep conviction, any researcher or scientist is still providing efforts to overtly improve the actual state of knowledge in any area by first and foremost putting in question anything is already known. If we agree with that, then there is no need to behave in ways that hinder or obstruct the reality produced by each one, though in secrecy of name and credentials. Otherwise, we as scientists are not very different from all those corrupted rulers, wherever they have been, are or will be, whose main attribute is the secrecy of doing things at the expense of their entire societies.

It is part of my ethics and moral to do things openly and transparently, even more in science than in my everyday life. And, I think that it should be the ethics and the moral of all science and scientists. Otherwise, castes and cliques will prevail also in science and research as in the worst and undemocratic regimes of this world.

Hi,

Since in most cases the reviewers are anonymous, I do not see why they should object to publishing their comments. It is more understandable if their identity is known. But even then, if they are sure that their decision is the right one, they should not object to sharing it with others.

Even the names of peer-reviewers should be disclosed. Otherwise, by being secret is like so much people in social media using nicknames and making so many disgusting comments without any responsibility.

In science should not have secrecy, but only the truth, which cannot support practices of "no names", "nicknames" or "permission" for disclosing comments, as the codes or atomic bombs are inside.

This is, I think, the way that all scientists should follow in peer-reviews.

Thank you for the question. I agree with Christopher Nock

Sharing peer-reviews and reviewers comments is really important. Rejecting a manuscript without providing reviewers comments is unethical and inappropriate.

Following this important conversation