Hey, here’s a new reason for a journal to reject a paper: it’s “annoying” that it’s already on a preprint server

Alex Gamma writes:

I’m interested in publishing in journal X. So I inquire about X’s preprint policy.

X’s editor informs me that

[Journal X] does not prohibit placing submitted manuscripts on preprint servers. Some reviewers may notice the server version of the article, however, and they may find the lack of anonymity so annoying that it affects their recommendations about the paper.

This is interesting in part because it highlights the different roles of scientific journals. Traditionally, a journal is a way to “publish” a paper, that is, to print the article so that other people can read it. In this case, it’s already on the preprint server, so the main purpose of the journal is to give a stamp of approval. This all seems like a mess.

I think it’s inappropriate for a reviewer to downgrade a submission because it’s been posted on a preprint server. I don’t know about the rest of you, but sometimes I do something that seems important enough that I don’t feel like waiting 2 years for it to appear in print!

At the very least, I feel that the editor, in his or her instructions to reviewers, could explicitly instruct them not be influenced by the existing publication history. This stricture can’t be enforced but at least it could be established as a norm. As it is, it almost sounds like the editor thinks this attitude on the part of reviewers is OK.

The post Hey, here’s a new reason for a journal to reject a paper: it’s “annoying” that it’s already on a preprint server appeared first on Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science.