Will the Academic Prisoner's Dilemma impact eLife 2.0

The life science publisher eLife is doing away with the accept/reject decision in a bold move to reinvent the journal as a publisher of peer-reviews. But why not publish editorial evaluations of the papers that are desk rejected to address concerns that conflicts of interest may influence editorial decisions.

Bonne chance eLife 2.0

My aim with this post isn’t to accept/reject the new eLife (Ha ha!). But similar to how the new eLife will probably treat most of my papers, I’m giving the model a measured thumbs up with some recommended changes. This is my eLife assessment of eLife 2.0:

“In the current version, the statement that eLife has abolished accept/reject isn’t supported by the data. This reviewer strongly recommends that eLife editors post their decision letter on the website independently of whether they send the article for external review. Desk reject decisions should be open and transparent. I’m looking forward to evaluating the revised model.”