Boycotting reviewing for academic journals

[downer]

I just saw a call for a boycott of people doing peer reviews for a journal because someone disapproved of the way a paper had been referreed. I guess I remember a few other similar calls for a boycott. I don't remember any of them having any effect. Does it ever work?

[Parasaurolophus]

Wasn't there a widespread boycott of Springer-based journals ten to fifteen years ago? I don't remember the outcome, but I think it was relatively positive.

FWIW, I might well boycott a journal due to its editorial practices. I wouldn't boycott it because of a single referee report, however. Not unless the way that report was handled indicated serious lapses of editorial judgement, anyway.

[polly_mer]

Like Parasaurolophus, I remember a few calls over the years for boycotts for particular publishers due to a handful of not-great practices (e.g., awfully expensive subscriptions and yet running on mostly free-to-the-journal labor, page costs and yet still awfully expensive subscriptions, becoming even more expensive for an electronic-only subscription that has limited access to the electronic back issues).  I can't remember any calls to boycott a society journal.

I can't remember any boycotts working because "everyone" knows which journals are worth supporting (i.e., journals that are filling a reasonable niche and "everyone" publishes there) and which journals are not worth supporting (i.e., predatory journals that "no one" reads and yet cost a fortune in which to publish as well as subscribe).

[Parasaurolophus]

Hmm, was this the recent event you had in mind?

[pigou]

What does "working" mean? If good reviewers actually did boycott the process, the journal's quality would likely go down. Good papers would get rejected by reviewers who didn't bother reading the paper and bad papers will get accepted because nobody pointed out the flaws. The editor might well want to get better reviewers (and know who they are), but if they choose not to participate...

As an idea, it makes about as much sense to me as postdocs/graduate students who go on strike. Doesn't harm the tenured faculty who doesn't really need more publications, but makes the striking postdoc/student less productive and hence less likely to find employment down the road.

[Myword]

Where did you see this call to boycott? With hundreds and hundreds of journals, how could it have any effect?
It's sort of a rhetorical moot issue. I feel reviewers  have not treated fairly 2 articles I wrote but I can't prove it. Religious prejudices.

Hey, I thought of actually buying a journal and become its editor.

[youllneverwalkalone]

Reviewers'boycotts may sway some individuals, but I don't think they can ever work in the sense of making a journal/publisher change their editiorial/business practices. There is simply not enough coordination and critical mass for reviewers to have any kind of real barganing power.

[Hibush]

Reviewers'boycotts may sway some individuals, but I don't think they can ever work in the sense of making a journal/publisher change their editiorial/business practices. There is simply not enough coordination and critical mass for reviewers to have any kind of real bargaining power.

A one-person "boycott" is not a boycott.  But you hear the term used that way a lot.

Is that because people don't understand how to wield influence? Is it part of the current trend of opting out of participation in any organizatino that does not hold to sufficiently pure principles>?

[Wahoo Redux]

Reviewers'boycotts may sway some individuals, but I don't think they can ever work in the sense of making a journal/publisher change their editiorial/business practices. There is simply not enough coordination and critical mass for reviewers to have any kind of real barganing power.

I once got a revise-&-resubmit from a rather specialized journal.  The two initial readers' reports came back quickly.  They were unfortunately scathing but helpful; one said R&R, and one said deny, so the manuscript was in the balance from the get-go. 

I revised a good deal and sent the article back and waited for quite some time.  I eventually queried the editor who was very polite and apologized for the delay.  I waited again for quite some time, queried again and explained that I'd like to have a decision one way or the other before the beginning of the "job season."  The editor apologized again and said hu understood and promised to light a fire under the final reader.  Then, some time after this, I got a rejection that was so antagonistic it was nothing but an attack and pretty clearly a reaction to only the first page of the article (reader mentioned nothing other than items on the first page).  The editor sadly but firmly denied the article.  I wrote back and thanked hu for the first two readers' reports and did not mention the final reader; I suspect the context was clear.

While the manuscript obviously had issues, the editor must have read the final reviewer and, rather than dismissing it as a temper tantrum after an unreasonable delay and either finding a new reader or making a final editorial decision hu-self, simply went with the program.  I imagine that the final reader was someone of some academic heft, so the editor's deference can be understandable from that perspective.

Nevertheless, I thought about starting a thread on the old fora regarding badly-behaving journals, but that probably would have outed me if anyone from the journal happened to be a forumite and, frankly, wouldn't actually change a thing in today's academic climate.

That's one thing I would worry about regarding boycotting anything unless one has tenure and a rock-solid reputation.  What good would it really do?

[Hibush]

Reviewers'boycotts may sway some individuals, but I don't think they can ever work in the sense of making a journal/publisher change their editiorial/business practices. There is simply not enough coordination and critical mass for reviewers to have any kind of real barganing power.

...

Nevertheless, I thought about starting a thread on the old fora regarding badly-behaving journals, but that probably would have outed me if anyone from the journal happened to be a forumite and, frankly, wouldn't actually change a thing in today's academic climate.

That's one thing I would worry about regarding boycotting anything unless one has tenure and a rock-solid reputation.  What good would it really do?

Choosing to submit to journals that have good editorial processes is a sensible action. It is not a boycott.

[marshwiggle]

Reviewers'boycotts may sway some individuals, but I don't think they can ever work in the sense of making a journal/publisher change their editiorial/business practices. There is simply not enough coordination and critical mass for reviewers to have any kind of real bargaining power.

A one-person "boycott" is not a boycott.  But you hear the term used that way a lot.

Is that because people don't understand how to wield influence? Is it part of the current trend of opting out of participation in any organization that does not hold to sufficiently pure principles?

a.k.a. "Cancel Culture - Academic Edition (TM)"

[Caracal]

Reviewers'boycotts may sway some individuals, but I don't think they can ever work in the sense of making a journal/publisher change their editiorial/business practices. There is simply not enough coordination and critical mass for reviewers to have any kind of real bargaining power.

A one-person "boycott" is not a boycott.  But you hear the term used that way a lot.

Is that because people don't understand how to wield influence? Is it part of the current trend of opting out of participation in any organization that does not hold to sufficiently pure principles?

a.k.a. "Cancel Culture - Academic Edition (TM)"

There's nothing new about this. You can go back a long time and find people resigning from editorial boards because they don't like something the journal did, or how it is being led, or something they published. And, of course, if you're submitting an article you can decide not to submit to a journal for any reason you want. Objections to the content of a piece are a completely legitimate reason to not want to associate with a journal. Obviously, in many cases, this might be counterproductive. Ideally, debates can play out in a journal. However, I think we can mostly agree that some ideas aren't worthy of being debated. I don't see anything particularly dangerous in debates about what those things are.

[downer]

I'm not keen to give the boycott publicity, though it has been getting a lot of social media and blog discussion among some. The change.org petition for the boycott has received rather few signatures, suggesting that most people are enthusiastic about such methods of applying pressure.

[youllneverwalkalone]

Reviewers'boycotts may sway some individuals, but I don't think they can ever work in the sense of making a journal/publisher change their editiorial/business practices. There is simply not enough coordination and critical mass for reviewers to have any kind of real bargaining power.

A one-person "boycott" is not a boycott.  But you hear the term used that way a lot.

Is that because people don't understand how to wield influence? Is it part of the current trend of opting out of participation in any organizatino that does not hold to sufficiently pure principles>?

What I meant was "calls for boycott". People can't wield influence if they are not organized.