> If I get asked to peer-review a paper that looks uninteresting to me, or something outside my interests and expertise, ... or write a quick report recommending that the paper not be accepted.
Often (but definitely not always), requests to peer-review are accompanied by statements like "We consider our Journal X to be on par with Journals Y and Z, and aim to be extremely selective. Please only recommend publication if blah-blah-blah...."
I'll then read the introduction. If I don't have sufficient expertise to referee the paper, I'll decline the request. If I do, then I'll see what the authors have accomplished. If, in my judgment, this doesn't rise to the level that the editors asked for, then it doesn't take me a long time to decide this and say so.
Conversely, if the introduction does impress me, then I will want to check the proofs in very close detail. In this case I will commit to writing a detailed report in the future.
It's quite common for papers to be declined from individual journals; it's happened to me plenty. There are tons of other journals out there; you can submit somewhere else. And when I decide that a negative report is called for, I write it right away, so as to not keep the authors waiting forever.
I think the "harsh" comment was because you suggested you might recommend the journal reject a paper because it was outside your interests and expertise, not because of any lack of merit. But that implication only arose from some selective editing.
Not really. If work is flawed, it will need to be fixed before recommending it to readers (which is now the only marginal value provided by editors). If it appears to be unfixable, the correct choice may be to recommend that it not be endorsed by a journal.
You can always put work up on arXiv if the goal is priority or distribution. Peer review is, in principle, designed to ensure that work is new and true (and that what is new is true). It’s not meant to fix flawed work, but to make good work better.
The problem is the preceding if clause. You say that you do this if you find it uninteresting, or if you have no expertise in the field of the paper. Both of these are qualifiers of you, not of the paper, so indeed it seems harsh to punish the authors for the bad referee selection of the editor.
He'll decline the request or say it should not be accepted. Declining the request is just fine, and a reasonable thing to do. There are many mathematical results that are in fact uninteresting (to just about anyone) and it's fine to suggest those be rejected from a good journal.
I've had many paper rejections, none because of false or uninteresting claims but almost all because "it's not good enough for this prestige journal" or "it's too specialized for this journal". I expect a certain number of those, because I submit to reach journals now and then and hope I get a reviewer and editor that like the work :) If I wanted certain publication immediately I'd submit to lower-tier journals first, which I have also done when I just needed something out.
I'll then read the introduction. If I don't have sufficient expertise to referee the paper, I'll decline the request. If I do, then I'll see what the authors have accomplished. If, in my judgment, this doesn't rise to the level that the editors asked for, then it doesn't take me a long time to decide this and say so.
Conversely, if the introduction does impress me, then I will want to check the proofs in very close detail. In this case I will commit to writing a detailed report in the future.
It's quite common for papers to be declined from individual journals; it's happened to me plenty. There are tons of other journals out there; you can submit somewhere else. And when I decide that a negative report is called for, I write it right away, so as to not keep the authors waiting forever.