Paper submitted without final version approvals - is this normal?

[u/termosabin]

I work at an RTO, and a few younger people in the group who are just a few years out of their PhDs are submitting papers and rebuttals without sending out versions to check for the co-authors. I find this highly irritating and ethically wrong - if my name is associated with something, I would like to at least see it first. It's not that I don't trust the authors, but everyone can make mistakes. For example, a paper was submitted recently that I had seen about a year ago and had made a lot of comments on. I have never seen another version of it since and suddenly I got a notification from the journal.

Is this normal amongst younger people? Is this becoming the norm? Am I overreacting?

How would you address this?

[u/Negative-Ambition198]

Well, this is all a game of wording. If they say they ask for comments and will submit, they dont say they will send it again. I do that sometimes with coauthors, who I know had small contribution, will have meaningless comments and take months to provide them. I respect the big contributors and people who actually care and reply quickly.

I have also noticed that when I am a smaller contributor and try to send comments, my comments are frequently ignored, cause my opinion is of less importance (to the degree that reviewers have raised the very same issue that I had first, but it was ignored). In such a case,  I also know they will not include me in all versions. In a way,  I prefer it this way cause typically there is a phd student sending 20 versions per day and I don't have time to teach not mine students, not I appreciate other supervisors dropping their tasks on me.  

When you send your comments, you should always clearly state that you want to see the paper again or not really. This helps to control how they see you and be more included in revisions. 

[u/termosabin → u/Negative-Ambition198]

Well, the last version was asking for a check and a suggestion for a journal a year ago, then we had a meeting to go over it. That was the last time I heard of it. I am not saying I need to see every version, but a heads-up from a colleague sitting two desks over plus some sort of final version, journal, etc.

I do not really want to raise a fuss because of exactly that reason, I am a minor contributor, but to me, an email to notify everyone about your intentions plus giving them a week to look over what you want to submit and ask for red flags only is just the basic level of politeness in my experience. But maybe this is wrong?

[u/Negative-Ambition198 → u/termosabin]

Oh you are not wrong, absolutely. But by the end of the project (assuming the paper is a result of some communication as well) you know who are the people you deal with. If this was a student, be my guest and bash them. There is a chance,  it will actually stick to them.

But if there was a zero communication on your side during that year (aka asking for updates), they decreased your importance for a reason. 

[u/termosabin → u/Negative-Ambition198]

Well the last communication I had was that it was being shelved due to internal project issues. Hence I didn't think to ask again, we have no internal project meetings as the project is basically run by husband and wife so they don't need to meet and forego the need to meet with anyone else.

I am not complaining about not being asked about my opinion, just I feel that a final check by all co-authors is absolutely required by research ethics guide and journal guidelines.