08 December 2020

My resolve not to shoot the hostage is tested

I’ve written before about how refusing to review a paper because you don’t like a journal hurts authors more than editors or publishers. I called refusing to review “shooting the hostage.”

I am being sorely tested in my resolve not to shoot the hostage.

MDPI is a publisher already short of good will for their amateurish practices. Their president last week seems intend in burning any remaining good will by spouting pretty fascist-sounding rhetoric.

When I got an invitation to review yesterday, I legitimately couldn’t do it because I’m moving. But it was a lot easier to say “No” than it would have been otherwise.

1 comment:

Mike Taylor said...

In any case, the hostage is complicit. If I refuse to review a paper because it's destined for a non-OA journal, then the author that is hurt by this decision is one who himself made the decision to publish in a non-OA journal. I want that author to make a different choice next time, so arguably the pain is a feature, not a bug.

(For what it's worth, every time I have turned down a review for a non-OA journal, I have also written to the author to explain why; and I have never had a response that was less than understanding and even supportive.)