| name | rt-desk-reject-risk |
| description | Use before submitting to score a manuscript against a specific venue's own desk-reject triggers and return a ranked, fixable risk report. Venue-conditional — it reads the target's documented triggers rather than applying generic advice. Run it after rt-submission-readiness clears the mechanical bar and before the paper is uploaded. |
Desk-Reject Risk (rt-desk-reject-risk)
Desk rejection is the modal outcome at a strong venue, it arrives before any referee
reads the paper, and it costs weeks for reasons that are almost always documented in
advance. This repository already carries those reasons — 456 of 743 indexed venues
(61%) publish an explicit desk-reject section in their pack — but nothing turned
them into a check a paper could be scored against.
rt-submission-readiness answers "is the manuscript mechanically complete?". This
answers the different and harder question: "given this specific venue's stated
triggers, what will get this desk-rejected, and what is the cheapest fix?"
When to trigger
- A target venue is chosen and the paper is near-final.
- An author asks "will this survive the editor?" or "why did the last one get desked?"
- Immediately after
rt-venue-reframe, to score the reframed draft against its new home.
- Before a resubmission up the ladder, where the previous desk reject is evidence.
Method
Step 1 — locate the venue's triggers. From
venue-index.tsv, take
the row's pack_dir (depth) or profile_path (breadth) and read:
- the
## Common desk-reject triggers section (or the pack's Desk-reject and triage
/ decline-without-review variant) in its *-submission, *-review-process and
*-topic-selection skills;
- the scope and format constraints in
resources/official-source-map.md, read live —
length caps, abstract style, anonymity rules and fee/policy gates are volatile and
are a large share of real desk rejects.
If the venue publishes no explicit trigger list (about 4 in 10), say so, and fall back
to the venue's fit and house-style skills plus the generic gate in Step 3 — do not
invent venue-specific triggers.
Step 2 — score each trigger. For every documented trigger, judge the manuscript
against it and assign:
| Level | Meaning |
|---|
| Fatal | The editor will desk-reject on this alone. Fix before upload or change venue. |
| Likely | A common desk cause at this venue; the paper is exposed but not certain to fail. |
| Watch | Survivable, but it is the first thing a referee will raise. |
| Clear | Documented trigger the paper demonstrably does not hit. |
Cite the evidence in the manuscript for each judgement (a section, a table, a claim),
not a general impression. A risk with no located evidence is a hypothesis — mark it as
one, or drop it.
Step 3 — the universal gate (applies at every venue, on top of the venue's own):
- Scope miss — the contribution is not the kind of contribution this venue
publishes. This is the single largest desk cause and the least fixable.
- Framing miss — right result, wrong "why it matters" for this audience.
- Format/anonymity breach — length, abstract, blinding, reference style, ORCID,
supplementary rules. Mechanical and always worth fixing.
- Evidence baseline — a robustness or design check the venue treats as table
stakes and the paper omits.
- Policy — data-and-code availability, ethics/IRB, preregistration, conflicts,
prior dissemination or dual-submission rules.
Step 4 — return a cost-ranked fix list. Sort by (severity × 1/effort). Distinguish
fixes that are edits from fixes that need new analysis; say explicitly when the honest
conclusion is "this venue is wrong for this paper" and route to rt-journal-match.
Hard rules
- Venue-conditional, never generic. Every Fatal/Likely must trace to a trigger the
venue's own pack or source map states. Generic advice belongs in Step 3 and must be
labelled as such.
- Volatile constraints are read at scoring time from
resources/official-source-map.md — never quoted from memory.
- No fabricated triggers. If the pack does not document a trigger list, say so.
- Do not present this as a prediction of the editor's decision. It is a
documented-risk audit; there is no acceptance-probability number to give, and
inventing one would be false precision.
- Defer scope/fit judgement to the venue's
*-topic-selection skill.
Output format
【Venue】<display name> (pack: <pack_dir | profile_path>)
【Trigger source】<n> documented triggers read from <files> | none documented
【Source-map read】<date>
【Fatal】 trigger — evidence in the manuscript — fix (edit | new analysis)
【Likely】 …
【Watch】 …
【Clear】 triggers the paper demonstrably passes
【Cost-ranked fixes】1..n, each: severity · effort · what to change
【Verdict】submit as-is / fix first (n items) / wrong venue → rt-journal-match
Anti-patterns
- Producing a percentage "acceptance chance". The inputs do not support it.
- Listing every trigger as Watch — a report with no ranking is not a report.
- Scoring against a venue's reputation instead of its documented triggers.
- Running this instead of
rt-submission-readiness; they check different things and
the mechanical bar comes first.
- Treating a Clear on all triggers as an acceptance signal. Surviving the desk means
the paper reaches referees, nothing more.
Next: rt-simulated-referee once the desk gate is clear, then
rt-replication-package for the deposit.
