Contacting an author after reviewing their paper for a journal?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

I have some questions about the norms of contacting an author after anonymously peer reviewing their work. I recently refereed a paper that I thought was great: well-argued, interesting, and from which I learned a lot. I recommended acceptance. I'd like to talk more about some of the issues in the paper with the author if they are amenable to it. Is it appropriate to ask the editor for their name after the publication processes has shaken out? Or, once the paper is out, is it appropriate to contact the author revealing to them that I was the referee? Are there norms against this sort of revelation, such that doing so would be a breach of etiquette? Any thoughts welcome!

Fair questions, and a couple of readers submitted replies. Elizabeth writes:

Unless there's some huge rush, I'd just wait until the paper is published and contact the author about it without mentioning that you were the reviewer.

And an editor and referee writes:

You should NOT contact the author of a paper you reviewed until it is in print (or on-line at the journal site). I think that constitutes a breach of norms. Incidentally, I have had a few referees of papers of mine contact me after my paper was in print, letting me know they refereed it. Often it was someone senior, while I was quite junior. Indeed, in one case, one referee identified himself in the referee report, which the editor left in the report for me to see. This proved very useful for me, as I now knew I had strong support from someone highly respected in the field.

Both comments seem right to me. What do you all think?

Comments

[Mark van Roojen]

Yes, both comments seem right to me. I think once it is out it is fine. What you don't want to do is contact the author in the middle of the process before the paper is accepted and on its way to print. Thus I think it is OK to ask an editor who wrote a paper you want to cite, once sufficient time has gone by for it to be accepted. But I'd wait for it to come out if I just wanted to talk about it.

There can be another issue. I won't agree to referee the same paper or a different journal if I was negative about it (they deserve a chance to convince someone else.) But I will sometimes agree to referee when asked by a different journal if I liked the paper the first time I saw it. (Of course one has to tell the editor one refereed it earlier and let the journal decide whether refereeing it again is appropriate.) Contacting the author in that kind of case should take you out of the running to referee it again - to the author's detriment.

[Circe]

I've come to think one should never out oneself to an author. I would sometimes do this in the past, if I thought the paper was really excellent. But then I read a comment on a blog (perhaps this very one) where someone suggested it can create feelings of unease about 'owing' the referee. I keep my mouth shut now... So I agree with Elizabeth.

Of course, nothing should stop you from contacting the author to say how much you like their paper.

[AnonymousL]

Yeah I think one should not disclose that one was a reviewer of a paper since this is a breech of norms generally speaking. I would just wait until the paper came out to contact anyone. I once had a reviewer disclose who they were in a review they wrote, and with the editor's knowledge, but that was an unusual case and was for a special issue of a journal and not like the normal blind review process for most papers. I think one should error on the side of being conservative about these things.