accepted, rejected, or requests for changes in special issue

Question

Recently, I have gone through a special issue of a journal and in the special issue, in notification to the author section, it's mentioned that

Reviews returned to authors. Papers will be either accepted, rejected, or returned to the authors with requests for changes

There is only mentioned about the revised manuscript due date and special issue published date. Does that mean "returned to the authors with requests for changes" is another form of acceptance? or after submitting the revised document there may become a chance of the rejection?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

"Returned to authors with requests for changes" is a "revise" decision. That means the journal wants the authors to make certain changes (e.g., gather more data) before making a decision.

After a revise decision, my experience is that acceptance is the most likely final result. Certainly a paper that's returned to the authors for revision is not going to be desk rejected anymore. However, it's not a guarantee - you still have to convince the editors & reviewers to accept your paper.

Answer 2

As @Allure pointed out, "returned to authors with requests for changes" is certainly a "revise decision".

However, since this is a paper submitted to a special issue, there are more time restrictions that have to be imposed. For example, if several rounds of revisions are required (you never know), the paper might not be accepted for publication by the revised manuscript due date. In this case, it might be advised for resubmission to a regular issue, automatically considered for publication in a regular issue, or rejected (very unlikely, if otherwise the review process went smooth and only the timing was the issue).