The DIP Process

[James Blachly]

On 2/26/19 5:09 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 2/26/19 3:09 PM, James Blachly wrote:
>> On Tuesday, 26 February 2019 at 19:49:52 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>> Yah, I know of the process from my wife. There are quite a few 
>>> differences between the fields. One is that in medicine a case 
>>> presentation is in and by itself publishable material, and all the 
>>> editor needs to do is assess the rarity and relevance of the material.
>>
>> I am not at all describing “case reports,” and your thoughtless 
>> dismissal of earnest feedback/suggestion really underlines the 
>> criticisms others have leveled against you specifically, and perhaps 
>> the process generally.
> 
> Didn't that escalate a bit quick? You wrote the goings in your field 
> with no further argument as to how the process would be translated to 
> our case. I shared the little insight I had, too, in expectation of more 
> detail. How is one a earnest feedback/suggestion and the other 
> thoughtless dismissal?

I acknowledge and apologize. I misinterpreted your terseness as tacit 
dismissal based on a preformed negative impression without getting to 
know you personally. Mea culpa.

To return to the analogy, from the perspective of an outsider [to the 
DIP process], the scientific article (I am speaking here of 
hypothesis-driven research) submission/peer referee process and the DIP 
submission/revision process appear quite similar, as you pointed out.

To clarify further, rejection after review and possibly multiple rounds 
of revision is a disappointing, but expected outcome. In this sense it 
is like the DIP process and I believe even Manu has said that this is an 
acceptable outcome, so long as the review was fair.

Upthread, J. Marler made the suggestion that a suitable authority or 
designee may be able to provide a "pre-review". This is indeed common in 
biomedicine: a journal's associate editor may provide an estimate of 
suitability of the study in question, before the manuscript is formatted 
to the journal's specific requirements or before final supplementary 
experiments and figures are compiled. If one is lucky, some general 
guidance about suggested experiments that might be necessary prior to 
acceptance may be given. If I know that _Nature Genetics_ is not at all 
interested in my manuscript (due to editorial priorities, or study 
scope, or whatever) I can save a lot of time. In the sense that I have 
multiple options (perhaps formatting and targeting instead _Genome 
Biology_) this is dissimilar to DIP.

Even more importantly, **after each round of revisions in the scientific 
paper submission process, the editor or associate editor provides 
commentary regarding the reviews as received (and as a scientist 
themself is responsible for recognizing inappropriate, inaccurate, or 
unfair peer review) and makes a judgement about whether to accept the 
manuscript, proceed pending  additional minor or major revisions, or 
reject.** This I find key, and could make the most improvement in the 
DIP review process.

Ultimately, I agree with other commenters that it could be helpful to 
have feedback from the language maintainers much earlier in the process 
than at the very end of a potentially long road. Clearly no one can 
compel Andrei and Walter to provide more of their limited time, but some 
additional intervention, whether in pre-review, or shepherding of 
reviews, may go along way toward alleviating the concerns raised recently.

Offered in a spirit of helpfulness,
James Blachly