Trouble in Flatland I

“For why should the thirst for knowledge be aroused, only to be disappointed and punished?”

Ugh. Another rejection, oh woe is me. This one was weird. We carefully revised the paper with a year of work, addressed every one of the myriad comments and were really happy with the revision. And then reviewer three (no, it isn't always reviewer three, but yeh, this time it was), who initially really seemed to like it, decided that no, they really hated it. So yes, we thirsted for knowledge, only to be disappointed and punished. Off to another journal – another list of complaints and much, much more work. Woe is us.

But the quote isn't mine – it is Edward A. Abbott's, from his book ‘Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions’. I hope you know it; if you don't, then by all means stop reading my rant and look it up. It is superficially a novella written by a two-dimensional individual (A Square) living in a two-dimensional world (Flatland) and thus a book about geometry. But really, it is a biting social satire of the time.

But I'm not really talking about that Flatland, I'm talking about our Flatland – the two-dimensional space in which our results are disseminated to the public. You know, publishing. The place where we are punished on a regular basis. And while I'm particularly grumpy at the moment (see “another rejection”, above), I have also just returned from a rather nice, if very uncomfortable, meeting. The sort of meeting where we all stay in the sort of lodgings we inhabited as undergraduate Molets, taking cold showers and eating meals in a cafeteria. But the meeting itself was excellent, with lots of new findings and passionate discussions. Among these discussions were the usual complaints about trying to publish our findings, but I have to say that I got the feeling that things are worse than ever. They may be getting to a breaking point. And this came not only from we who strive to publish, but also from those who do the publishing. You know, journal editors. I think there's trouble in Flatland.

Here's the thing. Over my career, I have acted as an editor for a few different journals. One of the most frustrating aspects of doing this is trying to enlist reviewers, which can be rather hard. And for good reason: we, as reviewers, are essentially asked to stop whatever we are doing (or at least put it on hold) and rigorously review someone else's paper, which these days contains a great deal of information in the form of sub-panels in figures, supplementary figures, tables, charts and micrographs. And later, assuming things were sort of okay, we will likely have to do it all again with the revision (in which case, we really can't say “no”, no matter how busy we are). And we – as reviewers – do this all for free, knowing that once the editor hits the ‘accept’ button, the authors (happy as they are) will fork out thousands and thousands of dollars, euros, pounds, RMB, yen or semolians for the privilege of finally having their work put into Flatland. (By the way, for those who don't know, semolians is the unit of currency used by Bugs Bunny and other denizens of the Warner Brothers cartoon universe.)

So, getting reviewers can be challenging. Once, long, long ago (really, just before the Terrible Pandemic), we would have to ask four or even five people in order to obtain two reviewers. As I understand it, it is now likely that an editor will have to ask nine or ten to find the same two reviewers. One editor told me that he has asked up to forty.

Meanwhile, the reviews, once done, seem to have gotten nastier. Cerberus, the three-headed dog at the gates of the Underworld, graciously allowed entrance to the deceased, but these Cerberuses (Cerberi?) stand firm against allowing a reader to view the work until any and all questions, queries, notions and alternatives have been thoroughly addressed with new, copious data (from rather expensive and time-consuming experiments). “Even then”, growls Cerberus, “only if I'm feeling very generous”. Sure, addressing reviews can be challenging, but from my discussions at this and other recent meetings, I'm getting the feeling that things have ratcheted up several notches. Cerberus is awake, obstructive and contentious.

And of course, it is we, the reviewers (who are authors ourselves), who are doing this to each other. What is going on?

I have a theory. (Hey, I'm Mole, of course I have a theory.) Papers aren't papers anymore. Many (maybe most? I hope not) scientists have stopped reading papers. Sure, we look at abstracts that come up in literature searches, and perhaps glance at a figure or two, but much of what I hear about comes through social media (“Did you see this paper? I haven't read it, but the graphical abstract looks great. If you read it, let me know if it's interesting?”). Once, undoubtedly, papers were for the dissemination of information gleaned from observation and experimentation. Now? I suggest that papers are primarily currency.

This isn't really a new thing, this idea that papers are currency. A paper can help me get a grant (which in my country, the one with the aspiring once and future king, means that I can pay my mortgage). A paper can help me get a promotion. And a paper certainly helps my Molets get a job (so they can get a grant and a mortgage). We exchange our papers for goods and services. Perhaps even trips to give talks in places nicer than the one I just visited. Perhaps recognition. Currency. This has always been somewhat true, only now I think it has ascended to the apex. Some scientists are as likely to read a paper that does not directly impact their own work as they are to read what is written on a dollar (euro, pound, RMB, franc, yen, semolian) note.

And as fewer people actually use publications as a source of information, this paper currency becomes more subject to economic principles. Simply put, when I am acting as a reviewer and see your manuscript (over which I have great control), I register the value the publication is likely to have for you. And I am going to expect you to work very hard to get it. There is no advantage for me to let you pass through the gates to Flatland. And as my own papers get similar treatment, my response is to make this even harder for you. Things escalate. The ‘costs’ of passing through the gates of the review process (not to mention the publication fees) are inflating.

One of the prevailing solutions to this is to demand that the review process be transparent. That is, my name and my review of your paper will be public, allowing all to see what I did or am doing to you. Indeed, I agree that this would solve one problem; as a reviewer, I would not get away with simply being openly (and irresponsibly) obstructive. In fact, I am likely not only to be much nicer (although you should know that I am always nice when I review. My use of “I” here really pertains to everyone else), but also much more careful to be constructive.

But remember, papers are currency. I expect a quid pro quo, as dictated by simple economic principles. I am very nice to you, and you are subsequently very nice to me. If not, it is tit-for-tat; you reject me, I will reject you (until you accept my next paper). And since I do not want to publicly trounce your paper, I am even more likely to decline to review. One solution to the zero-sum game is cooperation – everyone publishes. At least, everyone who is in the ‘pool’ of reviewers. Another solution is that nobody plays the game. And therein lies the rub. (I know, “therein lies the rub” is a misquoting of Hamlet. But I'm talking about publishing, not perishing, which is the opposite. Did I just say that? Sorry. Soft you now. In thy orisons, be all my sins remembered.)

It would be nice to have everyone be nice, so that we can be nice. But the system, as it currently stands, cannot support this. Again, it is the economics, not only of Flatland but also of the industry, that supports Flatland. Within Flatland, some journals (such as Crosby, Stills and Nash – you know what I mean) have more ‘value’ than their (similarly excellent) relatives and friends, which in turn certainly have more value than the predatory journals. (And by value, I do not mean quality, rigor or intellectual interest, although I do not think that the more predatory journals particularly ascribe to such; I mean value in the sense of ‘this will translate to worldly goods’.)

Once this was about impact factor (IF); the IF of a journal translated to the currency of the paper, but this too is changing, as the IFs of some journals far outshine the quality of the papers they publish. Yes, I realize that this idea of inherent quality is fully at odds with my claim that nobody actually reads the papers. But within my Flatland perspective of ‘papers are currency’, I can readily replace ‘quality’ with ‘market value’. A paper in ‘Tropical Fish True Crime’, regardless of its IF, is simply not of the same value as a paper in the journal you are currently reading (although, I would very likely read ‘Tropical Fish True Crime’, even if I would not be likely to cite its papers). Market value is the value we, as a community, give something. If publishing in a particular journal is more likely to give you access to a job you would like, this is its market value. And let's be clear: this market value is not assigned by the journal or by those who monitor citations. It is assigned by us. The same folks who rail against the ‘value’ of a given journal are often the first, when on a job search committee, to laud a candidate because of the specific journals in which the candidate has published. We want to deconstruct our cake and eat it too.

I'll get back to the collapse of the IF system and the market value of publications next time, when I will provide my own solution to the quandary that Flatland is facing. Actually, it isn't my solution but that of my colleague, Professor Fisher, he of the hilarious screams.

But first, I'm going to re-read the bit in Flatland where A Square meets A Sphere. Truly, out of the (two-dimensional) box thinking. Just the sort of multidimensional thinking we might need if we are going to solve our own Flatland problem. By the way, the use of the word ‘currency’ (‘to flow’) to indicate money did not appear until the 16th century. The use of the word to indicate scientific publications did not appear (to my knowledge), until just now. ‘Tea’, anyone?