My excellent PhD student submitted a paper to a special issue of a journal dedicated to network science. One of the reviewers wrote a report that included the following choice observations. We have since been told that the writer is a very senior figure in the field, and the editor apologized for the tone. This is a fairly outrageous abuse of power and not likely to nurture future researchers. There were some useful observations that made sense but not as many as I would have expected from someone with such alleged competence.

I regret to claim that, despite the enthusiasm with which I accepted the invitation to review this manuscript, I am appalled by it. My sense is that you do not comprehend the nature of signed networks, their subtle dynamics and have produced a manuscript that lacks any understanding of the substantive concerns surrounding the study of signed networks. You appear to be clueless – sorry, but I must be blunt – about important substantive and technical issues in this area. Substance matters when studying social networks not you give an airborne copulation about substance. Nor do you appear to care about the interplay between substance and technique in studying social networks.

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These figures are meaningless. While moving onto the realm of biological networks has potential interest value, the exposition adds nothing. I am sure there are substantive issues in this literature that dwarf a narrow-minded concern with frustration indices as if this is the entry point to the kingdom of eternal life.

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Please pay attention to substance! But I suspect, given this manuscript, you do not care about substance. As I read your manuscript, substance just gets in the way of a narrow focus on methods.

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You have got to be kidding!  …  your claim, given the equivalence of two measures, strikes me as false and designed to promote your own work.