I recently received a request for refereeing a paper for a journal I had never heard of, in a field far, far away from my own, with an abstract that indicated little innovation beyond transferring a by now standard technique to this very field. Given the volume of such requests, I immediately declined and received the scolding and peeved reply, as of below, from said journal editor! (The above picture is from Bayesian Core, not from the paper submitted.)
Invited Reviewer:
Thank you for letting us know that you are not willing to review the submission, “Bayesian Analysis of Mixtures with an Unknown Number of Components &tc,” for Journal of Some Socio-Economics Issues®.
It is most unfortunate that you did not choose to make your impression that “the contents sound very standard given the existing literature” known to the author/s on behalf of the Journal. It would certainly have aided them in the longer run.We also find it rather extraordinary for a potential reviewer to turn down an invitation “because there is little possibility I [will] ever publish in your journal”. So much for fostering your discipline and academic excellence outside of a specific circle of publications …Best regards,
The editor
