7 ms·

Remind me again how much the reviewers get paid.

YuriNiyazov 3y ago
Nothing. Nice gotcha, bro. I never said reviewers get paid. I mean the internal machinery that needs to get 15 articles reviewed costs money - employees that search lists of potential reviewers for people with expertise in the relevant subfield, email the potential reviewers, wait for them to accept or reject a review request, coordinate the entire thing, etc. etc.
- lozenge 3y ago
  You said it costs to peer review them. But they aren't reviewing them. If that's worth $6,000, the reviewers deserve $60,000/
  - anigbrowl 3y ago
    I don't agree with OP here but they are reviewing and rejecting some submissions.
- strangeloops85 3y ago
  As an academic editor for a society journal this is ridiculous. Most of this process is automated and takes a grand total of 15 mins of time. Also, Nature charging $10k for open access while PLOS charges more like $2k should tell you what’s going on here
  - YuriNiyazov 3y ago
    Most publishers do not have this process automated, I assure you. Even so, the theory that an automated process requires no maintenance does not hold water.
    - AlexandrB 3y ago
      > Most publishers do not have this process automated This kind of points to rent-seeking or cartel behavior, doesn't it? If this was a competitive market a publisher could get an upper hand by automating and offering their services at a lower rate.
    - glofish 3y ago
      First the argument that we failed to automate it hence it is expensive is feels specious. But let's accept it at face value. And now take it all the way. Suppose you reject 15 papers for every single one accepted. And suppose that accepted pays $3K So what costs $200 per rejection? What is that work that you need to put in that adds up to costing $200 per rejection? Or $300 or $500? In my experience at least half (if not more) of the rejections come right from the editorial desk ... someone spending 5 minutes with the paper.
      - YuriNiyazov 3y ago
        For a high-prestige journal, you get 50 submissions per 1 published article. Let's reject 80% of them right off the bat from the editorial desk. We now have twenty articles left to properly peer review. I had originally said 15, so let's make it 15. In order to get three peer reviews in an article, you have to email thirty people, because the conversion from "request to peer review" to "get a review" is 10%. So, to get 3 peer reviews, you have to email 30 people, and then maintain a funnel (some people dont respond, some people say maybe, some people say yes, but in a month, etc. etc. then reminders, follow-ups, etc.) until the peer review is done. $200. Let's say the total cost of an employee is $50 / hour (salary + insurance + taxes). Surely it's plausible that it takes a total of 4 hours, spread across multiple months, to maintain multiple (start at 30 and then drop) threads of communication that eventually get a review to completion. And I did not include in that calculation anything that even remotely includes any other administrative costs, or, heaven forbid, "how much the CEO makes"
        YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
        >> In order to get three peer reviews in an article, you have to email thirty people, because the conversion from "request to peer review" to "get a review" is 10%. So, to get 3 peer reviews, you have to email 30 people, and then maintain a funnel (some people dont respond, some people say maybe, some people say yes, but in a month, etc. etc. then reminders, follow-ups, etc.) until the peer review is done. All that is either handled automatically -sending emails to people who submitted articles on online submission systems- or performed by unpaid editors -soliciting reviews, desk rejection or communicating with authors to request clarifications or respond to questions, chasing reviewers, and so on, and so forth. But, hey, if the editors in your journal get paid for all this drudgery, then please let me know where to apply.
- kevinventullo 3y ago
  Yeah, emailing a handful of reviewers from a fixed list and following up via email definitely sounds like it costs $6300. What are the net profits of your employer? How much did the CEO make last year? Look, I understand that your livelihood depends on this but I encourage you to consider the possibility that the vast majority of academics who think journals like yours are leeches might have a point.
  - YuriNiyazov 3y ago
    Like I said in the very beginning, "I am deeply biased", which means that I have deeply considered this possibility, and I have heard many, many academics. This thread is a replay of something that has happened multiple times already. In my view, the arguments are much weaker than the people making them believe they are. I don't mean to say they hold no water. I just mean that they are not made from people who stare at financial spreadsheets day in/day out trying to make a red number become black.
    - chairhairair 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - YuriNiyazov 3y ago
        Yes, I'm sure that that @dang will be coming by shortly to tell you that you broke https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dalai 3y ago
  I used to be an editor in a journal from one of the big publishers (not Elsevier). We searched for reviewers, invited them, reminded them when they were late in responding, evaluated their submissions, send the approvals, etc. And I didn’t get paid a dime. All the publisher had to do was maintain the platform. And sure that costs money too, but the costs are shared between multiple journals and papers.
  - YuriNiyazov 3y ago
    Yea, that's not a good model. Better publishers have publishing managers, internal employees assigned to work with editors to get this done. From https://www.mdpi.com/editors https://www.mdpi.com/editors "MDPI is headquartered in Basel, Switzerland. The in-house staff consists of Managing Editors, Assistant Editors, Production Editors, English Editors, Copyeditors, Data Specialists, Software Engineers and Administrative Specialists. Except for most English Editors, all are employed by MDPI and its subsidiaries and work at the MDPI offices. Our collaborating editors on our Editorial Boards are typically employed at academic institutions or corporate research facilities located all over the world. ... Assistant Editors process manuscripts through the peer-review and production procedures..."
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - justeleblanc 3y ago
      They're just people running the peer review and production systems (think the online submission system, solving technical issues, writing emails, etc). It's in the name: assistant. They're not the people looking for peer reviewers or doing anything scientific.
      - YuriNiyazov 3y ago
        As I point out in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35657036 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35657036 the costs of having employees that "write emails" scales linearly with the number of submissions that are eligible for peer review, not with the number of papers that are successfully published.
- refurb 3y ago
  Pretty typical HN. People pontificate about why something is the way it is, then someone with actual experience steps in and explains, then they get attacked, downvoted and told "no that's no true". LOL
  - YuriNiyazov 3y ago
    We passed the point of rational debate a long time ago. Now it's just a part of people's identities that "I believe that academic publishers are leeches"

Nothing. Nice gotcha, bro. I never said reviewers get paid. I mean the internal machinery that needs to get 15 articles reviewed costs money - employees that search lists of potential reviewers for people with expertise in the relevant subfield, email the potential reviewers, wait for them to accept or reject a review request, coordinate the entire thing, etc. etc.

lozenge 3y ago
You said it costs to peer review them. But they aren't reviewing them. If that's worth $6,000, the reviewers deserve $60,000/
- anigbrowl 3y ago
  I don't agree with OP here but they are reviewing and rejecting some submissions.
strangeloops85 3y ago
As an academic editor for a society journal this is ridiculous. Most of this process is automated and takes a grand total of 15 mins of time. Also, Nature charging $10k for open access while PLOS charges more like $2k should tell you what’s going on here
- YuriNiyazov 3y ago
  Most publishers do not have this process automated, I assure you. Even so, the theory that an automated process requires no maintenance does not hold water.
  - AlexandrB 3y ago
    > Most publishers do not have this process automated This kind of points to rent-seeking or cartel behavior, doesn't it? If this was a competitive market a publisher could get an upper hand by automating and offering their services at a lower rate.
  - glofish 3y ago
    First the argument that we failed to automate it hence it is expensive is feels specious. But let's accept it at face value. And now take it all the way. Suppose you reject 15 papers for every single one accepted. And suppose that accepted pays $3K So what costs $200 per rejection? What is that work that you need to put in that adds up to costing $200 per rejection? Or $300 or $500? In my experience at least half (if not more) of the rejections come right from the editorial desk ... someone spending 5 minutes with the paper.
    - YuriNiyazov 3y ago
      For a high-prestige journal, you get 50 submissions per 1 published article. Let's reject 80% of them right off the bat from the editorial desk. We now have twenty articles left to properly peer review. I had originally said 15, so let's make it 15. In order to get three peer reviews in an article, you have to email thirty people, because the conversion from "request to peer review" to "get a review" is 10%. So, to get 3 peer reviews, you have to email 30 people, and then maintain a funnel (some people dont respond, some people say maybe, some people say yes, but in a month, etc. etc. then reminders, follow-ups, etc.) until the peer review is done. $200. Let's say the total cost of an employee is $50 / hour (salary + insurance + taxes). Surely it's plausible that it takes a total of 4 hours, spread across multiple months, to maintain multiple (start at 30 and then drop) threads of communication that eventually get a review to completion. And I did not include in that calculation anything that even remotely includes any other administrative costs, or, heaven forbid, "how much the CEO makes"
      - YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
        >> In order to get three peer reviews in an article, you have to email thirty people, because the conversion from "request to peer review" to "get a review" is 10%. So, to get 3 peer reviews, you have to email 30 people, and then maintain a funnel (some people dont respond, some people say maybe, some people say yes, but in a month, etc. etc. then reminders, follow-ups, etc.) until the peer review is done. All that is either handled automatically -sending emails to people who submitted articles on online submission systems- or performed by unpaid editors -soliciting reviews, desk rejection or communicating with authors to request clarifications or respond to questions, chasing reviewers, and so on, and so forth. But, hey, if the editors in your journal get paid for all this drudgery, then please let me know where to apply.
kevinventullo 3y ago
Yeah, emailing a handful of reviewers from a fixed list and following up via email definitely sounds like it costs $6300. What are the net profits of your employer? How much did the CEO make last year? Look, I understand that your livelihood depends on this but I encourage you to consider the possibility that the vast majority of academics who think journals like yours are leeches might have a point.
- YuriNiyazov 3y ago
  Like I said in the very beginning, "I am deeply biased", which means that I have deeply considered this possibility, and I have heard many, many academics. This thread is a replay of something that has happened multiple times already. In my view, the arguments are much weaker than the people making them believe they are. I don't mean to say they hold no water. I just mean that they are not made from people who stare at financial spreadsheets day in/day out trying to make a red number become black.
  - chairhairair 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - YuriNiyazov 3y ago
      Yes, I'm sure that that @dang will be coming by shortly to tell you that you broke https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
dalai 3y ago
I used to be an editor in a journal from one of the big publishers (not Elsevier). We searched for reviewers, invited them, reminded them when they were late in responding, evaluated their submissions, send the approvals, etc. And I didn’t get paid a dime. All the publisher had to do was maintain the platform. And sure that costs money too, but the costs are shared between multiple journals and papers.
- YuriNiyazov 3y ago
  Yea, that's not a good model. Better publishers have publishing managers, internal employees assigned to work with editors to get this done. From https://www.mdpi.com/editors https://www.mdpi.com/editors "MDPI is headquartered in Basel, Switzerland. The in-house staff consists of Managing Editors, Assistant Editors, Production Editors, English Editors, Copyeditors, Data Specialists, Software Engineers and Administrative Specialists. Except for most English Editors, all are employed by MDPI and its subsidiaries and work at the MDPI offices. Our collaborating editors on our Editorial Boards are typically employed at academic institutions or corporate research facilities located all over the world. ... Assistant Editors process manuscripts through the peer-review and production procedures..."
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - justeleblanc 3y ago
    They're just people running the peer review and production systems (think the online submission system, solving technical issues, writing emails, etc). It's in the name: assistant. They're not the people looking for peer reviewers or doing anything scientific.
    - YuriNiyazov 3y ago
      As I point out in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35657036 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35657036 the costs of having employees that "write emails" scales linearly with the number of submissions that are eligible for peer review, not with the number of papers that are successfully published.
refurb 3y ago
Pretty typical HN. People pontificate about why something is the way it is, then someone with actual experience steps in and explains, then they get attacked, downvoted and told "no that's no true". LOL
- YuriNiyazov 3y ago
  We passed the point of rational debate a long time ago. Now it's just a part of people's identities that "I believe that academic publishers are leeches"