Our first story this weekend isn’t science; it’s math. There’s a new, open access math journal in the works, and it’s looking for submissions for its inaugural issue. Nothing surprising there, but its twist on the publishing process is hinted at by its title: Rejecta Mathematica. I’d be tempted to view this as a joke, but there appear to be real academics behind it, and there’s a certain (mildly crazed) logic to its concept.
The idea is that some papers that have been rejected may still contain valuable information, like useful approaches and techniques; the rejection occurs because they’re applied to a flawed premise or used in conjunction with some methodological error. The new journal doesn’t promise to fix these problems; instead, authors are expected to fully disclose the flaws in a letter that accompanies the paper and explains why it was originally rejected. The big problem I see is that crackpots probably don’t recognize the issues with their ideas, and can’t be counted on to accurately portray them in a letter. Still, I really hope it’s not a joke, because I’m dying to see the first round of letters. I also note that the journal is at math.rejecta.org, opening the prospect of a biology.rejecta.org, and so on.
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