Writing #5--Don't be this guy! And don't be me.
I recently witnessed a most unfortunate incident. An author misinterpreted the editor's letter, which had rejected the paper but invited resubmission. The author thought that two reviewers had colluded and submitted almost identical reviews. He documented what he (thought he) saw. And he wrote to the editor about it.
So far so good.
Was I that editor? No, and this is where things went badly awry. The author, who was definitely on his high horse, copied all the other editors of the journal. That's how I found out about it. I did a "reply all", stripping out all the recipients except the other editors, and indicated that I thought it did kind of look bad. I should not have done that, but the saving grace was that my comment only went to the other editors. Unfortunately, not all of the people who reacted to the author's email stripped out the authors. An investigation was launched.
So far so good, sort of.
Here's the kicker: The editor in question is in a distant time zone. He hadn't even had a chance to see the original email before a bunch of people reacted. It turned out that the author had misunderstood the letter and that, in fact, the editor had gone the extra mile on behalf of the author, seeking clarification on one of the reviews. Somehow, the author understood the original review and the clarification as two different reviews that were almost identical (and they were--they were basically the same review from the same reviewer).
Needless to say, the original editor was peeved that people had jumped in, especially by promising to the author an "investigation", without giving him time to wake up and explain the situation. I apologized to my fellow editor. To his credit, the author apologized to everyone, not just the original editor, for jumping to conclusions and popping off.
The moral of the story is, if you think there's something wrong, talk to the individual first. Don't email everyone associated with the journal in your initial complaint.
So far so good.
Was I that editor? No, and this is where things went badly awry. The author, who was definitely on his high horse, copied all the other editors of the journal. That's how I found out about it. I did a "reply all", stripping out all the recipients except the other editors, and indicated that I thought it did kind of look bad. I should not have done that, but the saving grace was that my comment only went to the other editors. Unfortunately, not all of the people who reacted to the author's email stripped out the authors. An investigation was launched.
So far so good, sort of.
Here's the kicker: The editor in question is in a distant time zone. He hadn't even had a chance to see the original email before a bunch of people reacted. It turned out that the author had misunderstood the letter and that, in fact, the editor had gone the extra mile on behalf of the author, seeking clarification on one of the reviews. Somehow, the author understood the original review and the clarification as two different reviews that were almost identical (and they were--they were basically the same review from the same reviewer).
Needless to say, the original editor was peeved that people had jumped in, especially by promising to the author an "investigation", without giving him time to wake up and explain the situation. I apologized to my fellow editor. To his credit, the author apologized to everyone, not just the original editor, for jumping to conclusions and popping off.
The moral of the story is, if you think there's something wrong, talk to the individual first. Don't email everyone associated with the journal in your initial complaint.
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