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I published in Nature Physics and the copy-editing process was quite embarrassing, to the point where we had to repeatedly nag them to stop them from making the

I published in Nature Physics and the copy-editing process was quite embarrassing, to the point where we had to repeatedly nag them to stop them from making the manuscript presentation worse. To be clear, I’m not talking about subjective style issues, I mean conforming to their own spec and avoiding careless bugs. All remaining work fell on the backs of the physics referees. I’m not sure what value Springer provided from an editorial standpoint. It was disappointing to say the least after all that hard work.

12_throw_away 3mo ago
Right? A lot of journals make a big deal about submitting your manuscript in the proper format (sometimes even LaTeX if you're lucky) and then you get the galley proofs back and half the equations and citations now have typos in them. The entire publishing process often feels like a chain of "you had ONE job"-type errors from the journals (presumably because they're wildly underpaying and overworking the people whose one job these things should have been).
- mattkrause 3mo ago
  On top of that, the whole thing is done in fits and starts. You send in the final revision, it vanishes into the void for some unspecified time, and then they offer[*] you 48 hours--sometimes not even lined up with two working days!--to figure out what they "fixed" and repair it yourself. [*] Nothing usually happens if you push back on this fake deadline, though I suppose your paper might end up in a different issue of a printed journal. It's just annoyingly rushed--give me a week!
- KennyBlanken 3mo ago
  It could be incompetence, or it could be reviewers and others intentionally trying to sabotage other people's work.
  - wormius 3mo ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
  - 12_throw_away 3mo ago
    > it could be reviewers and others intentionally trying to sabotage other people's work Anyone with even a tiny bit of knowledge about the topic being discussed would know that everything I described happens after reviewers and editors approve the manuscript. At this stage, they have all long since ended their involvement in the process. As with most conspiracy theories, this "theory" reveals much about you, but fails to say anything at all about the topic at hand. [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzDztyS09CU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzDztyS09CU

12_throw_away 3mo ago

Right? A lot of journals make a big deal about submitting your manuscript in the proper format (sometimes even LaTeX if you're lucky) and then you get the galley proofs back and half the equations and citations now have typos in them. The entire publishing process often feels like a chain of "you had ONE job"-type errors from the journals (presumably because they're wildly underpaying and overworking the people whose one job these things should have been).

mattkrause 3mo ago
On top of that, the whole thing is done in fits and starts. You send in the final revision, it vanishes into the void for some unspecified time, and then they offer[*] you 48 hours--sometimes not even lined up with two working days!--to figure out what they "fixed" and repair it yourself. [*] Nothing usually happens if you push back on this fake deadline, though I suppose your paper might end up in a different issue of a printed journal. It's just annoyingly rushed--give me a week!
KennyBlanken 3mo ago
It could be incompetence, or it could be reviewers and others intentionally trying to sabotage other people's work.
- wormius 3mo ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
- 12_throw_away 3mo ago
  > it could be reviewers and others intentionally trying to sabotage other people's work Anyone with even a tiny bit of knowledge about the topic being discussed would know that everything I described happens after reviewers and editors approve the manuscript. At this stage, they have all long since ended their involvement in the process. As with most conspiracy theories, this "theory" reveals much about you, but fails to say anything at all about the topic at hand. [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzDztyS09CU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzDztyS09CU