How can a commentary be published before the commentary it’s commenting on? I submitted a commentary on a paper authored by the chief editor of a publication¹. After over six months, my commentary was finally placed in the peer-review queue. Before the review of our commentaries were even completed, two commentaries discussing our commentary were published. It should be noted that we still haven’t seem a response/reply to our original commentaries from the original author.

I am questioning the ethics of allowing commentaries of commentaries being published before the original commentary has been put "In Press" and would like to get other peoples perspective on the situation. Bottom line I am asking: Is there any explanation how this could have happened with an ethically operating journal or an ethically acting editor, respectively?




¹ I am being vague on specific details for a reason
Assuming your "commentary" was not publicly available (e.g., as preprint on your homepage or some server), and assuming that you submitted it to the journal under an assumption of confidentiality (in the first place), a reasonable editor and/or referee would certainly not publish commentary on a thing they had under confidential review... IF "commentary" means something at all conforming to the usual rules-of-the-game with "papers", which I can't quite tell from the sketchy details you've given.

That is, in the world (academic mathematics) in which I operate, if in the course of refereeing papers submitted to traditional journals I learn something interesting/useful, or disagree with various aspects, my main channel of response is (anonymously) back to the authors through the editor, requesting or recommending a revision. It would be highly inappropriate for me to write and make-public, whether on a web site or any other venue, a paper either extending or contradicting or critiquing that paper prior to its official public appearance.

If anything like that has happened, then it does seem well outside the bounds of propriety, yes.