All reviews received by SciRev

Motivation: desk rejection without reasons stated

Motivation: Response from journal: "As you may know, we decline a substantial proportion of manuscripts without sending them to reviewers, so that they may be sent elsewhere without delay. In such cases, even if reviewers were to certify the manuscript as technically correct, we do not believe that it represents a development of sufficient importance to warrant publication in Nature Ecology & Evolution. These editorial judgements are based on such considerations as the degree of advance provided, the breadth of potential interest to researchers and timeliness.

In this case, we do not feel that your paper has matched our criteria for further consideration. We therefore feel that the paper would find a more suitable outlet in another journal. "

Motivation: Reviews were extremely helpful, as well as the editor's own anonymous comments. It was a bit slow but understandably so given the pandemic.

Motivation: Editor's decision was largely based on few very short comments (from one reviewer), which were due to some obvious errors in understanding of the paper. We tried to bring this up with the Editor but never received a reply.

Motivation: "Thank you for submitting your manuscript to Science. Because your manuscript was not given a high priority rating during the initial screening process, we have decided not to proceed to in-depth review. The overall view is that the scope and focus of your paper make it more appropriate for a more specialized journal. We are therefore notifying you so that you can seek publication elsewhere.

We now receive many more interesting papers than we can publish. We therefore send for in-depth review only those papers most likely to be ultimately published in Science. Papers are selected on the basis of discipline, novelty, and general significance, in addition to the usual criteria for publication in specialized journals. Therefore, our decision is not necessarily a reflection of the quality of your research but rather of our stringent space limitations."

Motivation: The comments of the reviewers are very instructive and interesting
The only weak point is the waiting time which is long

Motivation: I felt the article was rejected really quickly (less than 1day), and based on the critics made by the Editor, it seemed that the article was not properly read.

Motivation: In favor: Quick rejection.
Against: they do not give a reason, even if the article does not have enough impact, it is understood as a valid reason but they only commented not suitable.

Motivation: The review process looked normal to start with. Three reviewers gave constructive comments. However, the editor bolded the instruction in the email body that insisted us to use their language editing service, although no reviewer has requested it. This is not surprising as the cost of such a service is the same price to the open access fee.
The language editor does not seem to understand research, nor statistical method. The language editor changed the manuscript into a student’s thesis style. The language editing itself changed our precise description into a wording mess. Somehow, The language editor even changed our method and asked why we did not mention it early (of course not, because we did not use that method at all).
After we completed all reviewers' requests and added additional data, the editor personally requested additional data which were not requested in the first peer-reviewing round, and those data are only confirming the existing information using a different method. Such data do not add any scientific value, yet the editor insisted we repeating the whole study to provide these new data. It seems that he ignored the fact in our method that it takes 6 months to repeat the experiment involving animals. It is questionable whether this editor understands basic research. We did not want to respond to such an unethical request and then the manuscript was rejected.
After we checked out the wiki page for the editor-in-chief for this journal/publishing house (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demetrios_Spandidos#cite_note-:0-5), we decided not to appeal.

Motivation: At first, the manuscript received two positive reviewer reports asking for revision. In the second round, one reviewer suggested minor revisions while the other said that even though the paper was strengthened it still needed more work. In the third report, a new reviewer was introduced whose report was also in a positive tone asking for revisions. The fourth time, I have only received one reviewer report from a new reviewer who briefly stated that the manuscript was not adequate for the journal (stating that the sampling was too limited and arguing that the manuscript was not a good fit for the journal).
Complete waste of my time and the time of previous reviewers since all of their reports were positive. The new reviewer (Reviewer 5 as it has been named by the journal) was also pretty rude and the report was not constructive at all, lacking any kind of suggestions. I have lost 9 months with this journal and it was the worst experience I ever had with a journal. I strongly recommend everyone to stay away.