As the journal operates entirely electronically I am sometimes copied in to email exchanges between authors after decision letters are sent out regarding manuscripts. The scenario is that the email providing the decision is sent by ScholarOne to all of the authors of the paper. They then comment on the decision by hitting Reply All, and as a result I am copied in to their correspondence.
Most of the time I am tickled by the happy exchanges that go on, the ‘Well done everybody!’ messages, the ‘congratulations to all of the team’, etc. Sometimes though I see things that maybe the authors wouldn’t want to share with me. I have seen correspondence that basically amounts to ‘thank goodness for that. JHND was the 8th journal we tried…’, which is less amusing for me. The responses to rejection can also be illuminating and top of my list is the email that went from the lead author to all of his colleagues (and me), describing the reviewers as a bunch of fascists.
