Rejecta Mathematica

First, let me go ahead and throw the following link out there so that you can review the sight, formulate an opinion, and then come back here and compare my opinion with your opinion:

• Rejecta Mathematica

Personally, I think this particular journal is an good idea, albeit with a few caveats. Not only is it disseminating information that might otherwise have been forever, but it is also, in a way, striking at some of the deterimental behaviors of the "establishment".

It is always a presumptuous position, by nature, for a single editor or group of editors to decide the fate of a piece of academic work. On the one hand, there are genuinely bad papers, research that proves no point and goes nowhere (the kind of papers that seem to get published all too often these days). On the other hand, there are papers whose topics are either too esoteric, too new, or whose results are too baffling or incongruent with the community’s current leaning to survive the editorial process, no matter how true or ultimately useful they may prove to be. This is the fate of every human decision, that hindsight is always more clear than foresight.

I see two potential reactions to this journal and potentially subsequent journals in the same "Rejecta" vein. First, the more positive one: that reviewers and editors begin to take a serious look at the papers they review and actually evaluate the content and results with an open mind eager to see scientific progress rather than maintain a personal or community ideal of status quo. In every field, sometimes past assumptions need to be questioned, and of course, some questions are more meaningful than others. And if this journal and others like it, promote the selection committees of other journals to rethink their standard business practices, then all the better for everyone.

I find the other potential reaction much more negative and detrimental to the scientific community than the current editorial practices, however. And time will tell whether the positive reaction outweighs the negative. Every community and every field has big egos, it is a part of human nature that will endure so long as we remain. And we all know that those egos are not necessarily in line with the owner's actual personal achievement or merit. Simply, It is easy for a researcher to become cocksure of their way of viewing a problem and the greatness of their own work. Sometimes a rejection is a much needed wake up call, albeit a jarring and undesirable one, to change perspective or shift focus. The "Rejecta" philosophy has the possibility to breed larger egos and greater contempt for review boards, promoting detrimental behavior and standards. I'd hate to see what happens to papers that get rejected from the Rejecta Mathematica...the Rejecta Rejecta Mathematica, perhaps?

To sum it all up, while a review board needs to have an open mind as it makes its decisions, along with the actual time to make a thorough assessment of the work, there is one quality that every researcher and editor must have if we wish to see scientific progress in any of our fields: humility.