In a Twitter post Joël Billieux posted, asked “Is this a joke ? I don’t think so … “, in reference to the fact that Frontiers were offering points for editing manuscripts that could be used as (partial) payment for future submissions. You can see the tweet here, and also in the image below.
The most striking point (in our opinion) is that you can earn points for editing a manuscript, which raises a few questions.
- What does editing a manuscript actually mean? You review an article and, as a service to the authors, you edit part (or all) of the manuscript to improve it and/or save the authors having to do it?
- Can you put yourself forward as an editor so that you are passed a manuscript and you edit it in line with the suggestions of the reviewers?
- You earn 1,500 points for editing a manuscript. Is there a difference between editing a short paragraph and giving the manuscript a complete overhaul?
- What is to stop an editor simply calling on a large language model (such as ChatGPT) to make the edits? Using these AI tools you could easily edit 10’s (if not 100’s) of manuscripts in a day.
- Who checks the edits? The reviewer(s)? The Editor-in-chief? The authors?
- What checks and balances in place to ensure that the editor is not (for example) adding references to their own papers?
- Would the editor be invited to be an author if the edits he/she makes would normally warrant being an author on a paper?
- Will the use of an editor be noted, for example, by acknowledging their contribution in the paper?
Perhaps we misunderstand what is being proposed here? Anybody know whether our understanding is wrong, or can answer any of the questions we pose?