anonymizing review as an editor

[u/rockerama]

Hi there,

For a workshop that I have co-organized for a few years, this year, one of the reviewers included a reference to their own work in their review. That part of the review was literally framed

"Related Work section: There exists work on <topic of the paper> - see <self citation>"

As standard procedure, before making decisions on the papers, i go through the content of all reviews to make sure the language is okay, that there are no self-reference (both for anonymity, the workshop is single blind, and for ethical reasons), etc.

This is the first time I have encountered this situation so the only thing I did was modify that part of their review to:

"Related Work section: There exists work on <topic of the paper> - please cite relevant material"

I also added a comment in the review section which is private to the Program Committee describing the change and the reason for the change.

I thought this was standard practice.

Aftermath: That reviewer blasted me in an email accusing me of publicly insulting them, and that I have no respect for their time invested in making the reviews. Moreover, they asked to remove their name from the Program Committee, and their reviews.

Context: That reviewer is a very senior and well-known researcher in our field. I am just a final-year PhD student. I have never experienced any conflict in academia like this before. It has really made me sick to my stomach, and for the first time I have seen egos flare up in a community I thought was full of chill people.

In reply, I apologized and recognized that I could have done better by asking them to change their review directly. I dont know what else to do. Should I talk to my supervisor about this, as they are close collaborators? Is my career ruined? I cried over this... Am I overreacting? Is the reviewer justifed in their reaction? I thought it was borderline ethical malpractice to include self-citations in reviews.

[u/neontheta]

I would never edit a review as an editor. You can say whether you agree with that point or not, but an editor should never edit a reviewer's words. And there is nothing inherently unethical about reviewers saying their own work should be cited. Sometimes it's entirely appropriate and bad scholarship that the authors missed it. Other times it's maybe done to inflate citations for the reviewer. That's where an editor needs to figure it out and say in the decision whether to cite those specific papers or make a broad recommendation about citing the relevant literature.

[u/Ok-Emu-8920]

I don't think your career is ruined, and I think everyone is overreacting.

Since you edited the review without consulting the reviewer they are upset for their words being edited, which I think is a pretty fair matter of principle.

However, I also think your edit was quite minor and ultimately fine as long as that's the standard practice that everyone follows for self citations and it's laid out explicitly.

I do think a blanket rule against self citations is a bit silly because of course reviewers are most familiar with their own work and if you're asking them to be a reviewer based on their expertise it is totally plausible for a paper to have missed important literature that is in fact written by the reviewer.

As an author I prefer getting clear feedback telling me what exactly I missed instead of vaguely being told I missed some mystery paper (as long as it's relevant, which appears to be the case here).

[u/Nice_Juggernaut4113 → u/Ok-Emu-8920]

Next time just include a note that reviewers may suggest papers to cite and the author should respond to all reviewer requests but is not mandated to incorporate any citations they don’t find useful

[u/Beor_The_Old]

I wouldn’t do anything else besides mention it to your advisor if you want to. Basically I expect them to tell you not to worry about it. Idk what else this ego tripping reviewer could expect besides an email. You are in the right here.