[madhadron]

Elsevier requires a strict format on submissions so it can be put through their typesetting pipeline. There's almost no humans involved in that. Nor do they have professionals that edit the papers.

This is the case for the whole scientific publishing industry.

[gh02t]

Not true, having just gone through publishing in an Elsevier journal (and not for the first time). There was a person involved, because I discussed several of their edits over the phone. It's partially automated, but there is definitely a person involved doing actual work.

It is not, however, a full blown copy editor - it's primarily just minor changes, fixing formatting, and figure placement etc. Again, I don't like Elsevier, but it's not fair to say that they do nothing.

[dmitriz]

That was not my impression when dealing with them as author. Any justification for that?