But I complained only AFTER publication. We just could not risk further unfair delays for an ECR co-author. So the paper includes unnecessary references forced upon us. Cited in a way that makes it clear that we consider them beyond the scope and that they were brought up by the reviewer.

Happened to me: anonymous reviewer requested (the only comment!) some not-directly-relevant refs co-authored by ... the editor. The same was visible in several *publicly available* anonymous reviews under the same editor. After raising this with the publisher's ethics team the editor lost the gig.

Thank you for sharing this personal account, Thom.
-With best wishes.

📌

According to the director, it was relatively easy to get the money because the backers could assume that if things go wrong he is able to finish it all by himself. In Blender, BTW - a freeware!

Directory of free, open psychological datasets

docs.google.com/spreadsheets...