I reviewed a paper but was not informed of the decision -- is this common? I occasionally review articles for a prestigious but high-throughput journal. The most recent time, I went to check on the decision of the article, and saw that a decision of minor revision had been rendered but I was not informed. Is this a quiet way the editors have chosen to take me off of further reviewing a paper because they didn't like my review? I didn't even disagree with that decision particularly, but I had marked &quot;another journal&quot; for my recommendation.
In a previous encounter with this journal I was informed the journal had returned a decision of major revision, then the revision was never returned to the original reviewers, but rather was directly accepted by the editor and published 10 days later. Is this common too?
These may all be common practices at journals with more throughput than the specialized journals I am used to but they are new to me.
While most the journals that I have dealt with inform me of the editors' decision, I have found that a significant minority do not.
I've found this to be the case in fields with significantly different publication practices (e.g., computer science, biology), so I don't think it's field dependent. Likewise, there seems to be little consistency in which journals allow me to see other reviewers' comments and which do not.
My guess is that hiding review or decision information is some sort of attempt to increase editorial independence, e.g., allowing an editor to more freely decrease the weight given to an unfair Evil Reviewer #3.
I really do not like it, however, since seeing the editors' decision and the other reviews helps me simultaneously evaluate the quality of the journal and editor, which are also quite important to know (and sometimes give feedback on).