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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/37317
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/37317
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I would chalk this up to common human nature, and F&SF and Clarkesworld as uncommon expertise and/or resources.

On the common side, without being pejorative, what is not punished (financially, legally, or socially) becomes the accepted standard; we humans tend to do what is easiest to do in order to succeed without getting yelled at by people that matter. All elements of that formulation do count, and are intentionally broad: "succeed" is in the mind of the human; for some success is measured in dollars, for others in items produced or social impact or scientific relevance or patient outcomes.

Zeroing in on "success" for a magazine: Reviewing submissions serves a short term purpose (filling the next issue) and a long term purpose (encouraging submissions do not stop).

As is the case in most human enterprises, short term missions get prioritized much more heavily than long term missions, at the expense of long term missions. Focusing on filling the next issue would not surprise me in the least. Due to the iron law of limited resources, this necessarily leaves less time and energy to devote to not alienating the authors of rejected manuscripts. This is damaging to their prospects as an enterprise, but only in the **long term,** in the sense that the best authors that **can** get published will submit to magazines with quicker and better **rejection service;** if they are going to get rejected they want to know quickly, and would prefer a cogent explanation of why they were rejected.

Enterprises that succumb to their human nature and give short shrift to their long term missions (because they are always focused on the short term) tend to descend into the common pedestrian muck: In the case of a magazine, the quality of the stories they _receive_ will decline on average, because better authors don't have to waste their time there. Lower quality results in less subscriber enthusiasm, which forces the magazine to compete on price, which lowers their profit margins, advertising budget and general resources, which puts more pressure on them to not fail in the short term mission of filling the next issue!

I'd draw an analogy to an eating disorder: If all I ever focus on for food and exercise is what would make me feel good this hour (a very short term goal), then in just a few years my body will be a ruin and I'll be miserable. But maybe some chocolate cake will help... For a more long term success, say a decade out, I have to compromise between my short term goals and long term goals, even at the expense of my short term goals. I don't want to starve, but I don't want to be a hundred pounds overweight either.

Thus, if I were reviewing manuscripts for a magazine, my personal compromise between the short and long term would be to set a quota for myself of review that fits my other duties, and review that many manuscripts with notes. From those I reviewed I will pick the best six (or whatever) and those become my next issue. Of the rest, I may take a few salvageable ones and ask for revisions, but they all get returned immediately with my notes.

Contrast that to just reading quickly to find six acceptable stories, and leaving all the other "cleanup" (notes and returns) until a later date that gets done hastily and slowly, if the "notes" part gets done at all. This approach might produce slightly better stories in the short term, but collapses under the weight of postponed and shirked duties in the long term, as quality declines.

Original score: 3