Scientific Journals Should Encourage, Not Hinder, Debates About Their Published Papers

The revolution in electronic publishing now allows for papers to be continuously critiqued through letters to the editor, online comments, tweets and other means. However, established top-ranked journals still pose serious barriers regarding cultivation, documentation and dissemination of post publication critiques (1). To improve on this situation, Hardwicke et al. published a set of rules, one being for journals to actively encourage and highlight post publication critique to their readership. In this commentary, I present a case whereby the editors of a top ranked journal hindered the discussion/debate between authors and expert readers. Highlighting and publishing such cases will likely put pressure on journals to modify their current policies and actively encourage post publication review. Like Hardwicke et al., we believe that post publication review is a major vehicle for advancing and accelerating science, by encouraging debates, resolving disagreements and revealing flaws in already published (and in many cases seemingly high-impact) papers.