I agree totally. At the very least, negative reviews may be good for laughs
to alleviate the pain of rejection. I have previously posted to this list
the story of my paper in which I stated that we have to tell the public that
conserving biodiversity involves more than protecting cute pandas and fuzzy
baby seals, which was rejected because I didn't know that the proper
scientific term was "charismatic megafauna". There was the time when the
reviewer sneered that I obviously knew nothing about ecological modelling
and should consult X, who was a student who flunked out of my modelling
course (of course the reviewer may have been right!).
I also think that authors should have the right to protest reviewing
standards, which is hard to do if you cannot quote the reviews. As a
theoretical ecologist I frequently run into reviewers and editors who feel
that papers must contain original data, and novel interpretations are not
good science. I reserve the right to protest.
Bill Silvert
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jonathan Greenberg" <greenb...@ucdavis.edu>
To: <ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU>
Sent: segunda-feira, 1 de Março de 2010 23:09
Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] Are reviews anonymous?
Interesting -- I'm primarily interested in reviews YOU receive on your
own submitted manuscript (which, 99% of the time, you don't know who
they are from) -- are you allowed to post these in any public forum?
Since the reviews cannot be linked back to an individual (unless that
individual steps forward and takes credit for it), and it is a
criticism of your own work, it seems like one should feel free to post
these if you want. I was interested in compiling the types of reviews
people get on manuscripts for teaching purposes, so I'm trying to find
out if its legit for people to share these reviews with me if they end
up going out into the public (e.g. on a website)?
