A person named in the acknowledgements of a paper wrote to the editor indicating that they had been in part responsible for the analysis and interpretation of the data and should therefore be named as an author.
I have had extensive correspondence (copies of emails, etc.) from both parties and spoken to both on the telephone. Clearly, earlier there had been an exchange of data between the two parties and some work from the complainant on possible findings to report from the study. This included at least in part one iteration of what was eventually reported in the published paper. At one point in this correspondence, the first author offered the (later) complainant authorship. However, at some later point in time and before the manuscript was submitted to the journal, the first author insisted that they had not in fact used any analysis or interpretation from the complainant but that they were willing to offer “authorship” even though this was the case—this was declined by the complainant as they did not consider their contribution in this case warranted inclusion as an author although the complainant did not, to my knowledge, at this point see the most recent version of the manuscript that went on to be submitted to the journal.
From my reading of the correspondence it seems that the primary author may have used the ideas of the “complainant” to some extent in that the focus of the published paper does take one of the lines of interpretation that the complainant had suggested (a line of interpretation that was not given prominence in the very first outline manuscript from the author that was originally shared with the complainant and that I have seen). The analysis presented in the published paper was slightly but not substantially different from one of a number that the complainant had earlier performed. The author insists that neither of these points is correct and that the complainant had no role in the formation of the paper but rather had suggested a different focus for the analysis/paper that they did not go on to take up.
I have not been able to broker an agreement between the two parties and I am not able to square their two separate accounts of what has happened over time, including claims that some emails pasted into Word documents and forwarded to me had been altered. As such, this leaves me unable to confidently either reject or accept the complaint.
The journal feels unhappy with the situation. Given that both accounts as currently being presented cannot be true and that this makes arbitrating between the two accounts very difficult, we are considering retracting the paper if this dispute cannot be resolved. We envisage publishing some note regarding a dispute between the authors and a complainant that could not be resolved by the editors. We would welcome the Forum’s experience of retraction in such circumstances.
The Forum agreed that this is essentially an author dispute and the editor cannot be expected to adjudicate in this matter. It is not the role of editors to resolve authorship disputes. All agreed that the paper should not be retracted. Some suggested that the editor could publish a notice of disputed authorship. The advice was to write to the complainant explaining that this is a matter between him and the author, and that the complainant should take the matter up with the author’s institution if he so wishes. Others advised that, in future, it might be useful for editors to confirm that persons named in the acknowledgements sections are aware of the fact and agree to inclusion.
The complainant acknowledged by email that the journal was not going to take any action regarding his complaint. The complainant asked whether they could write a “commentary” on the paper but was informed that it is not current journal policy to routinely accept commentaries. It was also felt that a commentary would not be of sufficient interest to journal readership to warrant publication. The request was declined. From the journal’s point of view the matter is now closed.