Response to Dolnicar and McCabe's pro-active model of journal editing

Abstract

Dolnicar and McCabe (2020) encourage courageous articles: either ignored completely, or adopted heavily. In my terminology, these avoid RH by risking AL. Our approaches differ, but our conclusions match. They describe pre-publication editorial evaluation of authors, for this one journal; I describe post-publication author evaluation of editors, for any journal. Authors choose journals, as well as vice versa. They gain if journal IFs improve, but lose when journals decline or collapse. Authors therefore have a stake in editorial skill. They routinely discuss and evaluate editors' interests and idiosyncrasies, qualifications and reputations. This proposal adds a quantitative component. Authors and editors come and go, and so do academic journals, institutions, ranking systems, and even disciplines. All of them contribute to the tree of knowledge. Courageous articles become either sturdy branches, or fallen leaves. Cowardly articles merely become twigs. The well-known words of Abbey (1968) also apply in academic publishing: “without courage, all other virtues are useless.”