Dear Russell:
One reason I started to put together a FAQ for this list with the
organizational pattern I selected is that we seem to be pushing a somewhat
swampy, narrow, shifting peninsula of new comprehension into the sea of the
unknown. This list itself may consist of a large fraction of those who are
interested in our mutual "hobby" enough to be able to act as referees.
The FAQ itself as I saw it would/could be more "journal" than otherwise.
Unfortunately my life has changed to the extent that I will have little
time to participate in the discussion and work on the FAQ outside the
Northern Hemisphere winter.
Hal
At 7/5/01, you wrote:
>As many of you are aware, I have been attempting to publish "Why
>Occams Razor" for about 18 months now. In September, it will have been
>two years since I wrote the paper. I first tried Phys Rev - which
>rejected it on editorial policy grounds ("no fundamentals of QM
>please") then Annals of Physics (who published Tegmark's
>paper). Annals of Physics found one referee, who completely failed to
>understand the main point of the paper, and was not prepared to
>discuss it. The ended up rejecting the paper because they couldn't
>find any other referees to handle it. In February of this year, I have
>submitted it to Journal of Theoretics, for two reasons:
>
>i) It is an Internet Journal, with open access to its
>archives. Philosophically, I am in favour of free open access to
>journals since
>
>a) scientists do not charge to write articles,
>b) scientists do not charge to referee articles,
>c) scientific editors often do not charge to edit journals, or the
>editors are subsidised by a society or institution
>d) the Internet reduces distributions charges to practically zero.
>
>I have been a long supporter of the journal Complexity International
>for these reasons, although its subject matter is not so relevant for
>this group. It perhaps does not have the cachet of other journals, but
>I believe so strongly in this principle, I would like to raise its
>quality by contributing good articles.
>
>ii) J. Theoretics editorial policy is summed up by:
>
>"Unlike most journals were the theory has to be validated or
>invalidated by the article, the Journal of Theoretics must use a
>different process due to the nature of the subject matter. Because a
>theory by definition is a hypothesis not yet proven, we must show that
>the premises, logic, or use of language of the article submitted
>contains a significant error in order for a rejection to occur."
>
>ie something obviously wrong gets rejected, but otherwise ideas of
>merit get to see the light of day.
>
>
>However, it seems that Internet journals do not have a speedier
>refereeing process. It galls me a bit, since I've always turned around
>papers I've refereed within a couple of weeks, that other referees may
>not be taking the refereeing process seriously.
>
>I have a question in light of this for the group. Come September (2nd
>anniversary of Why Occams Razor), if I've had no joy with
>J. Theoretics, I would like to try another journal. All I ask is that
>my paper be properly peer reveiwed. Does anyone have any suggestions?
>What about Teorie e Modelli?
>
> Cheers
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Dr. Russell Standish Director
>High Performance Computing Support Unit, Phone 9385 6967, 8308 3119 (mobile)
>UNSW SYDNEY 2052 Fax 9385 6965, 0425 253119 (")
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Received on Wed Jul 04 2001 - 18:40:01 PDT