Having just completed a reviewer workshop with the top journal in my field, and having reviewed for multiple conferences, I have several points. 1. Don't under

Having just completed a reviewer workshop with the top journal in my field, and having reviewed for multiple conferences, I have several points. 1. Don't underestimate how bad human reviewers can be. I've seen really bad reviews before. But the worst were for conferences, not journals. 2. The job of an associate editor is to field the reviews and make decision recommendations to the senior editor. A good associate editor will take care of this stuff, but may let a bad review through for the sake of the process. They might emphasize a particular review to help the author understand what the editor actually thinks is important, as opposed to letting the author think that all reviews are equal. That being said, it's up to the author to respond. If a reviewer is unequivocally wrong about something, the author can explain why they didn't follow the reviewer's recommendations. What the senior editor (and to some extent the associate editor) thinks is what matters, not what the reviewer thinks. 3. If the associate editor is not doing their job of fielding and reviewing the reviews, I question whether the journal is actually a top journal. My impression thus far is that top journals take their editing seriously. So far in grad school, I've met multiple editors from multiple journals, and gone to multiple journal workshops. The amount of work these people pour into doing journal work, many for free, is staggering. The burnout rate is significant accordingly, but the ones who stay keep it up because they want to be serious custodians of their discipline's research authority. It's a massive amount of work. I'm not sure I'd want to do it myself. I can't imagine such people brushing aside bad reviews and not realizing how bad they are. This is partly why good journals also have workshops to teach how to review. It's not easy to become an associate editor either. You need to become respected enough in the community to get nominated by editors and then voted in by editors. They have a standard based on how much they respect researchers. Now... it's possible that my discipline (information systems) is unique in this manner. Is it possible that the top journals in computer science, physics, or other don't take this seriously? I doubt it?