Journal reviewer emails author

[Myword]

Have you had a  journal reviewer directly send you their rejecting comments?
With their name too?  One reviewer only. No reply from the Editor.
It was supposed to be double-blind, anonymous.  I can
assume they know my identity also?  A very reputable journal in its field.

[Parasaurolophus]

No, it's never happened. I don't see how it could at a journal with double-anonymous review; something's gone wrong.

Unless you mean after the fact. I have occasionally disclosed to someone that I refereed their paper, and others have occasionally told me, as well. In fact, a friend just emailed me to say he'd refereed a paper that was rejected after an R&R a year ago. He'd just seen that it was rejected, and asked the journal why. They told him the referees had recommended rejection (which, having been one of them, he finds puzzling, since he never saw the revision). In fact, I doubt they sent it back out, since it was rejected days after my resubmission. But there have been other reports of screwy behaviour at the journal at the R&R stage.

Anyway. All that's just to say that that's really weird, unless your paper has already been rejected and it's just someone who googled it and contacted you after the fact.

[Myword]

At first the editor would not consider the article, and I had no reviewers to recommend, neither did editor, who was  nice about that.  Then I got a critique from  the reviewer. Obviously I wont bother them again. Reviewer only had criticism yet did not address the major point of paper.  Maybe editor wanted me to withdraw the article.

[Puget]

Are you sure this is a reviewer and not an editorial board member? What I can imagine might have happened is that the editor, at a loss for who could review it and if it was even a fit for the journal, sent it to an editorial board member with more expertise in the topic, who then provided you with feedback about why they didn't think it was a good fit for the journal. It still should have been formally rejected by the editor in the system though, and the comments probably should have come through the editor rather than directly.

[Myword]

 Puget is right. The reviewer is an editor for same journal. So I got no impartial reviewer and he only referred to
one part of my article. The major portion was not  even mentioned, as it is outside his field The submission was set up to be rejected, as I suspected, but it's better than no review.
This  happened to me before-- journals who had no one willing or able to review my work. Or the reviewer is really not interested in the topic or style, so it gets a blase cursory lookover. That explains the complaints on this site. I am so tired of this.
With popular publishers, authors are encouraged to send specific work that journals want to publish instead of what we do, write articles and then find who will accept it.  It depends on the field or subject.
Would this work for academic journals?    I write only because I feel driven.

[Puget]

Puget is right. The reviewer is an editor for same journal. So I got no impartial reviewer and he only referred to
one part of my article. The major portion was not  even mentioned, as it is outside his field The submission was set up to be rejected, as I suspected, but it's better than no review.
This  happened to me before-- journals who had no one willing or able to review my work. Or the reviewer is really not interested in the topic or style, so it gets a blase cursory lookover. That explains the complaints on this site. I am so tired of this.
With popular publishers, authors are encouraged to send specific work that journals want to publish instead of what we do, write articles and then find who will accept it.  It depends on the field or subject.
Would this work for academic journals?    I write only because I feel driven.

OK, then they did nothing wrong, it is just a desk-rejection with input from one of the other editors. That's a very normal thing for most journals to do. Journals increasingly have trouble finding reviewers-- everyone is over-burdened. But, having trouble finding reviewers for an article can also indicate that it is a poor fit for the journal.

[Myword]

 
And after I rewrote the paper specifically for this journal!
So frustrating.

[Ruralguy]

well, a lot of have been through that, over many disciplines.

[AJ_Katz]

And after I rewrote the paper specifically for this journal!
So frustrating.

Been there, done that.