Author: Hanna Kokko
Position: prof.
Institution: University of Helsinki
E-mail: hanna.kokko@helsinki.fi
Submitted Date: April 24, 2007
Published Date: April 24, 2007
This comment was originally posted as a “Reader Response” on the publication date indicated above. All Reader Responses are now available as comments.

So... what about those people who get asked to review a lot. I work in a field where mathematically skilled reviewers are in a short supply. As a result, I am typically asked 4-5 times a week if I could review a paper for this or that journal. If I did one per week, and all of them on time, this would still give me a penalty for refusing to do hundreds of manuscripts/year. Hundreds of weeks of accumulating penalty delay per year, even if divided over many journals... I think I could just quit science and start looking for another job right away.

Even if not all reviewers were this busy, the system would form a disincentive to become a good reviewer who provides thorough and thoughtful comments, because editors love good reviewers, and being loved like that is definitely not what one wants in a system where every review request is a potential penalty.