出版前不久，我收到了一封来自系统评论作者的电子邮件，告诉我第一次提交给《华尔街日报》进行同行评议的论文版本已经出现在美国一个竞选团体的网站上。很明显，网站上发布的文件版本与提供给《华尔街日报》同行的版本相同评审员。进一步调查显示，最初为论文提供建议的三名同行评论员（评论员A）中有一人也被任命为竞选小组董事会成员。《华尔街日报》实行匿名同行评议制度。
I emailed all three peer reviewers asking for an explanation as to how the confidential draft appeared on the website. Reviewers B and C replied within a few hours, disclaiming all knowledge, as I expected. Reviewer A has failed to reply. I also emailed the senior directors of the campaign group, asking them to remove the confidential draft from their website, and inviting them to replace it with the definitive paper, which had in the meantime been published. They did not reply. The directors have since been sent a letter from our publisher's lawyers asking for the confidential document to be removed—with reviewer A also sent a copy—on the grounds of breech of copyright. They have not replied. The lawyers are continuing to pursue legal avenues for getting the draft removed from the website.
在正常情况下，我会联系评论员A的机构，要求进行调查。然而，评审员A是没有关联的，所以我不能遵循这个过程。在我们的稿件跟踪数据库中，我们删除了审稿人A作为同行审稿人的角色，并附上了一份说明，以说明情况，这样他就不应该再被用作同行审稿人。
我收到了从铅频繁的邮件author of the paper, asking for a resolution of the matter. The author has requested that I give her the name of reviewer A, so that she can ask that he is excluded from peer reviewing her papers in the future. I have declined to do this on the grounds that it would be a further breach of confidentiality.
Question for the COPE Forum
Is there any more that can be done to obtain an explanation from reviewer A, or to satisfy the authors that we have investigated the matter to the limits of the journal's powers?
This case was not discussed at the Forum. Council instead gave the following advice on this case.
Council agreed that the editor had done all he could in trying to contact reviewer A and eliciting a response from him, and in attempting to have the paper removed from the website of the campaign group.
委员会一致认为，现在的重点应放在处理受害提交人和纠正公众记录上。建议是在网站上的报纸上增加一份关注的通知，对事件进行清楚的描述。编辑应冷静地陈述事实：
- the paper appears on the website of a campaign group with neither the authors’ nor the journal’s agreement;
-这发生在同行评议过程中，未经作者许可；
-《华尔街日报》一再要求把这篇文章删掉。
编辑还应回复作者，告诉他他计划在网站上发表公开声明，并说他现在觉得他已经尽了一切努力来推进这一案件。编辑可能会列出他删除文章所采取的所有步骤，详细说明他试图联系评论员和竞选网站的次数。
COPE建议不要公布那些拥有保密同行评议系统的期刊的评论员名单，即使有违反保密规定的嫌疑。COPE还建议编辑在使用非大学附属的评论员时要谨慎。
As recommended by COPE, the editor’s posted a note on the case in the journal, presenting an account of the events.
评论
I think the authors and journal should actively pursue legal action against people who are essentially "publishing" their work. Say this was a piece of fiction for the NYer and (who cares who), MTV-monthly published it w/o the consent of the NYer or the author --can't they sue for that? it's like stealing, there is copyright involved.
This appears to be an open-and-shut case of reviewer misconduct and blatant disregard for publication ethics by the campaign group. It could be argued that reviewer A, in failing to respond to repeated requests for clarification, has forfeited his or her "right" to anonymity. The (blameless) author's and journal's interests are being harmed by this situation, but the apparently intentional misdeeds by the reviewer and campaign group are not having any negative or corrective consequences for these two actors. Surely something is not right here.
The author is now exposed to a risk of future interference, by an unidentified individual, with his/her efforts to publish legitimate research. Perhaps the editor should reconsider whether the benefits to the author of letting him or her know the reviewer's identity should take precedence over the "moral" benefits to the journal of sticking with the rule of nondisclosure.
“COPE还建议编辑在使用非大学附属机构的评论员时要谨慎。”
This is overgeneralization -- like claiming that open access is a warning sign that the journal might not have acceptable quality standards. Lots of people in my profession, for example (STM translator, authors' editor, technical editor), are unafilliated (self-employed) but have been providing reviews to journals for years. Now that it has become so hard to find good reviewers, excluding a large pool of potential reviewers simply because they have no affiliation doesn't seem like a good direction to go. Perhaps it would be better for journals to obtain better contact info (and perhaps even references) on each of their reviewers before adding them to their database.
如果我的任何评论员这样做了，我会采取以下行动作为编辑。我会写信给他们，告诉他们他们不再是评论员了，我会在杂志的社论上发表同样的文章，并说明理由。我会让我所有的编辑同事知道发生了什么，是谁做的，并鼓励他们不要使用上述评论员。我也会写信给泰晤士报更高的细节，希望他们发表这封信，并鼓励后续评论。简言之，诋毁评论者。我也会让我能联系到的每个人都联系上那家不断骚扰我的网站，直到他们为发表他们无权发表的东西道歉，当然还要把报纸拿下来。