Editors of scholarly publications are gatekeepers who decide whether to publish manuscripts or not, but their decisions are constrained by institutional factors, sociological factors, and the availability of referees for peer-reviewing. The quality of the input of such referees depends not only on their thematic and methodological experience, but also on their motivation, on their personal bias and on sociological factors. Although this suggests that editorial decisions are less objective and reliable than their idealized representation, the referees’ comments are often convergent to an encouraging degree. The main comments made by referees on 42 manuscripts submitted to these proceedings are listed. They share a large common denominator, which suggests that the fundamental norms which they are based on are the same.