MOVING TO FRONT FROM JUNE 24--COMMENTS ARE NOW OPEN, AT THE REQUEST OF READERS. SUBMIT COMMENTS ONLY ONCE, THEY MAY TAKE AWHILE TO APPEAR.
A philosopher elsewhere shared this appalling story:
[A] paper I submitted on an r+r, for which I met every suggestion of the reader, was rejected because that same reader said "Reject" and gave no reason. The editors say that they cannot request the reader's reasons or go any further even though they liked the piece. It's just not supposed to work that way, is it?---we need to read the reasons in order to learn to improve; and in the absence of willingness to give reasons one worries about biases.
The journal editors here are incompetent: they are responsible for final decisions, and they can of course demand reasons from referees, and should have done so. I hope this is not a common occurrence, but I don't have the sense that it is.
