ronse@prlb2.UUCP (Ronse) (09/05/85)
The refereeing process in scientific publishing is a strong interest for
many researchers, but seemingly a secret one. Everyone has a thought about
it, sometimes an experience about it. However, not much has been written on
it. The only paper I've seen on the subject during the last few years is the
one by Dennis Lindley in The Mathematical Intelligencer (Vol. 6, no. 2).
I'd like to know what people on the net think about referees, their work,
what kind of experience they have with them.
In a letter to the editor of the M.I. (Vol. 7, no. 2) about Lindley's article,
I expressed the opinion that the quality of refereeing in Computer Science was
much more erratic than that in Mathematics. I also stated an experimental law:
The quality of a referee's report is inversely proportional
to the delay necessary to obtain it.
I expressed in a deterministic way. I now feel that this law should be
interpreted in a probabilistic fashion, because I've once received a prompt
referee's report consisting only of polemics and insults.
Some editors do not even acknowledge reception of a paper. One sends them a
manuscript, waits for a year without hearing anything from the journal, and
finaly wonders whether the editor is still alive.
Sometimes an editor apologizes for the slowlessness of the processing of a
paper by explaining that it has been in the hands of 10 referees, of which
7 have declined the job, 2 have given a report, one positive and one negative,
and of course the editor waits for the report of the last referee before
making a decision.
Sometimes referee have diametrically opposed views: one judges the paper
of ``award quality'', while the other advocates rejection.
Many more stories could be told. I'd be interested if usenet people could
express their opinion on that problem, give their experiences, and even some
anecdotes!
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maldoror@prlb2.UUCP
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