So what is the position of CAD, a SAGE journal, with respect to preprints? The first thing to note is that, as far as preprints are concerned, CAD's submission guidelines are not journal-specific, but systematically refer to the general SAGE policy mentioned above.

Since, as we have seen, such a policy is not clear, we return to the argument of potential discretionary editorial decisions.

Having introduced the subject, let's move on to the concrete case. In November 2022 I participated together with some colleagues in an international cybercrime conference, where we presented several of our papers.

The organizing committee had decided that some of the papers presented would be selected to be part of a special issue of CAD. As is customary, the special issue would be edited by a Guest Editor. In April 2023 we were (finally!) able to submit our paper for consideration.

Taking into account the time that had passed since we presented our paper at the conference and foreseeing the time that could pass until its publication, we decided to upload a preprint of our paper to Center for Open Science preprints.

It is perhaps important to note that our work was a systematic narrative review, so it was particularly susceptible to becoming outdated early. In these cases, preprints are very useful.

Since SAGE appears to leave it up to the discretion of each journal's editorial team whether or not to accept preprints, we thought there would be no problem in preprinting our work. But guess what? We were wrong. Here's how CAD handled our case.

Following a peer review process, in November 2023, the Guest Editors informed us that the reviewers had noted that the paper had been published elsewhere, that they were therefore unable to perform a blind review, and that the paper could therefore not be published in CAD.

The email attachment included a screenshot of the manuscript's record in Google Scholar, labeled as an OSF preprint.

We appealed the decision to the CAD Editorial Board (Editor-in-Chief, and four Associate Editors) and they replied that the Guest Editors are the ones who maintain control of the special issues, so the Editorial Board could not do anything about it. (This is also customary.)

In other words, the Editorial Board assumed no responsibility for the Guest Editors' decision to reject our article merely because it was preprinted. What does this say about the CAD's editorial team position on open science?

To be clear: we do not expect a change in the decision by CAD. There are many other journals that are preprint friendly that we can submit our work to, but it is important for the scientific community to know which journals support open science and which do not.

Whether through its Guest Editors or by supporting their decisions, CAD does not.

This case particularly upsets me because that manuscript was led by a PhD student to whom we are trying to instill the philosophy of open science from the very beginning of his academic career so that he can practice it in the future.

A PhD student who has already experienced his first disappointment by the publishing system of scientific journals—which by the way will probably be the first of many.

We believe that it is our duty as scientists to denounce such decisions contrary to open science principles so that the editorial teams of criminology journals, as well as potential contributors (authors, reviewers), reflect on their position in this regard.

I for one have a paper under review in CAD and have reviewed for CAD. I will not resubmit my work or review for them again until they change their stance on preprints. (Funnily enough, after this happened, I received a new request for peer review, which I obviously declined.)

I don't think they really care, and there may be some who think this is a tantrum. But it's not. I accepted the rejection months ago. I am a scientist; I am more than at peace with rejection.

What I am really after is to contribute to a scientific system that is accessible to all, a system that welcomes preprints, a system that, in short, adopts the principles of open science.

Harrison White, social networks scholar and theorist, died on the night of Saturday to Sunday aged 94 in his care home in Tucson, Arizona. He was a giant of the field, pioneering blockmodel analysis and creating a highly innovative theory of social structures and their change.