Picture this: that you receive two unexpected emails from me in quick succession. The first is a boilerplate pre-packaged message informing you that I have entered your address on my website as my temporary address for two or three days later this month, and I have let my employers know that people can call me or fax me at your house. I’m a complete stranger to you, except that you know my name from Language Log; I have obtained your email address from public sources, and pre-emptively set up arrangements to that assume I’ll be staying with you.
The second of the two emails is personally addressed, and says that I’ll be in your area later this month to give a lecture, and since I’m on a tight budget, would it be all right if I came to stay for two nights?
I take it you’d be somewhere between insulted and shocked, despite the fact that it is sort of flattering that a famous Language Log writer has singled you out as a person he would like to stay with. Well the equivalent not only happened to me today; it happens to me every couple of months.
Out of the blue comes an email telling me that my name has been added to a database of manuscript referees — academics who can be called upon to supply donated time reviewing papers submitted for publication. Then shortly after that comes a personal message from an editor (often a total stranger to me), asking me if I’d be so kind as to do a favor by reviewing a manuscript that has been submitted on some topic that I know about.
Every time my involuntary reaction is the same: repulsion, even anger, at the sheer rudeness of it. Despite the fact that a famous journal has singled me out as an expert they would like an opinion from.
Here’s the latest example, with journal, location, and editor’s name disguised to protect the not-particularly innocent. First, message number 1:
From [email protected] Sat Mar 20 07:26:27 2010
Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2010 03:26:20 -0400 (EDT)
From: [email protected]
Subject: Journal of Wwwww – Account Created in Manuscript Central20-Mar-2010
Dear Professor Geoffrey Pullum:
Welcome to Journal of Wwwww – Manuscript Central site for online manuscript submission and review. Your name has been added to our reviewer database in the hopes that you will be willing and able to review manuscripts for the Journal which fall within your area of expertise.
The site URL and your USER ID for your account is as follows…
When you log in for the first time, you will be asked to complete your full postal address, telephone, and fax number. You will also be asked to select a number of keywords describing your particular area(s) of expertise…
And now for message number 2:
From [email protected] Sat Mar 20 07:27:26 2010
Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2010 03:27:19 -0400 (EDT)
From: [email protected]
Subject: Journal of Wwwww – Invitation to Review Manuscript ID JWWW-2010-004120-Mar-2010
Dear Geoff (if I may):
The above manuscript, entitled “On the snrdpql vbrh of frueqbd sjhdpbc” has been submitted to Journal of Wwwww.
We would be grateful if you would kindly agree to act as a reviewer for this paper. The abstract appears at the end of this letter…
Notice that the first message was sent off 59 seconds before the second.
The culprit is not necessarily the well-meaning editor Professor Xxxxxx, who I have heard of but not met, or any of the staff of the Journal of Wwwww, which I have seen but am not antecedently involved with. Quite probably it is a suite of standard editorial software, owned by the huge Thomson Reuters global publishing empire, once called Manuscript Central and apparently now renamed ScholarOne Manuscripts. It is “the proven industry leader” in editorial discourtesy, designed as
an innovative, web-based, submission and peer review workflow solution for scholarly publishers. Easy-to-configure, it allows for streamlined administrative, editing and reviewing capabilities.
ScholarOne serves more than 365 societies and publishers, over 3,400 books and journals, and 13 million registered users.
ScholarOne Manuscripts reduces time to decision, eliminates paper distribution costs, decreases administrative overhead and increases submissions.
So there are 13 million of us exploited reviewers! And in almost all cases, it seems, we were first informed that we had been press-ganged and entered into naval personnel records and issued with a sailor’s uniform, and only then, a minute later, politely asked by the captain of the ship if we would be prepared to serve the navy as an ordinary seaman for zero pay. If hardly anyone else in academia has ever been offended by this, then I guess there must be way over 12.99 million people out there who are much more tolerant than I am.
All the software would have to do is to ensure that the default behavior is to send the polite request first, and send out the login name and password only later, after receiving a reply. That wouldn’t seem presumptuous and annoying at all. I’m prepared to believe that it just might have been Professor Xxxxxx’s fault: he could have had two tasks to execute and pressed the buttons in the wrong order. The reason I suspect the software design is that this has been done to me so often: the defaults must be such that this is the behavior resulting from the most natural way of using the program.
How could anyone design software with defaults so stupid? How could anyone (let alone a linguist) not notice this gross violation of polite discourse? You don’t tell someone first that you have already been put in the database and given an account name and assigned some password that they didn’t choose, and append a whole lot of terse instructions about what their duties will be in their new non-paying job, and then ask them to agree to do this favor!
So my policy now (since I really have too much to do, and some things have to go) is that I refuse refereeing requests when they arrive in this way. And from now on I will do it by sending the editor a link to this post. I’m sorry if this makes me seem unpleasantly grouchy, but I find these you-have-been-added messages unpleasantly rude. There may be 13 million people out there who tolerate this kind of discourtesy, but they aren’t going to include me.
[If you would like to comment below, please do so. Notice that if you have never commented before, you have not already been entered into our database of commenters, and you will choose your own identifying name and supply your email address. (Don’t forget that email address, because I may need to get in touch about coming to stay with you for a few days.)]
Added two days later:
For those of you whose reaction is “Oh, what’s the big deal, why not just ignore the email?”, let me say that (as I expected) I have now had further unwanted correspondence:
From [email protected] Sat Mar 20 07:26:27 2010
Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2010 03:26:20 -0400 (EDT)
From: [email protected]
Subject: Reminder: Manuscript ID JWWW-2010-004120-Mar-2010
Dear Professor Geoffrey Pullum:
Recently, we invited you to review the above manuscript, entitled “On the snrdpql vbrh of frueoabd sjhdpbc.” we have yet to hear from you about this.
This e-mail requests that you respond to the invitation to review. We very much appreciate your help in accomplishing our goal of having an expedited reviewing process. Thank you for your time and trouble.
Agreed: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/wwww?URL_MASK=3D5h78kQ359×64RHR22Z4
Declined: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/wwww?URL_MASK=3DFc8jFQ2H8cf3RX5bJ
Unavailable: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/wwww?URL_MASK=3DrTSkNBQ6h34q8h
I will now get emails for the rest of my life bugging me about a job I was never even asked if I would consider taking on. It’s like a collection agency starting to bug you about an unpaid bill for a purchase you were never even invited to make. Sigh.