[bumby]

I didn’t read the comment to mean the editor would explicitly signal anything was noteworthy about the paper, but rather they would select referees from a specific pool of experts. From that standpoint, the referee would have no insight into whether it was anything special (and they couldn’t tell if the other referees were of distinction either).

[sokoloff]

The editor is already selecting the best matched reviewers though, for any paper they send out for review.

They have more flexibility on how hard they push the reviewer to accept doing the specific review, or for a specific timeline, but they still get declines from some reviewers on some papers.

[bumby]

I know that’s the ideal but my original post ends with some skepticism at this claim. I’ve had more than a few come across my desk that are a poor fit. I try to be honest with the editors about why I reject the chance to review them. If I witness it more than a few times, they obviously aren’t being as judicial at their assignments as the ideal assumes.