Latest review
First review round: 8.0 weeks. Overall rating: 0 (very bad).
Outcome: Rejected.
Motivation:
After submitting my manuscript to the Natural Resources Forum, I received a revise and resubmit with comments from 7 reviewers. It was a very long process to revise the paper in a way that dealt with the concerns of all 7 reviewers who were focused on very different aspects of the paper.
After re-submission, I received a second round of comments from 6 of the 7 reviewers. The majority commented on how well I had dealt with the first round of comments and many said it was ready for publication or just needed a few final edits. While this process was certainly longer and more intense that normal, I do believe a better paper emerged out of it and that is great.
I finally received a decision from the editor simply reading "I found the contribution of the paper hard to identify. The article could be better articulated and focused. Therefore, we will not pursue publication of the article in the Journal." They did not reference the revisions or any specifics about the paper after almost 1 year of work from me and seven reviewers. The decision read as though it was a desk rejection, even though the paper had been through 2 rounds of revise and resubmit. Upon my asking for more detailed information about why there was a rejection decision, my email was ignored. I would not recommend this journal to anyone purely for the way the editorial staff has conducted themselves.
