3 ms·
The second post in that thread is gold: """ ... I once almost solved a conjecture, establishing the result with an "epsilon loss" in a key parameter. We subm
by abetusk 2y ago
The second post in that thread is gold:
"""
... I once almost solved a conjecture, establishing the result with an "epsilon loss" in a key parameter. We submitted to a highly reputable journal, but it was rejected on the grounds that it did not resolve the full conjecture. So we submitted elsewhere, and the paper was accepted.
The following year, we managed to finally prove the full conjecture without the epsilon loss, and decided to try submitting to the highly reputable journal again. This time, the paper was rejected for only being an epsilon improvement over the previous literature!
...
"""
- YouWhy 2y agoWhile I'm not a mathematician, I think such an attitude on behalf of the journal does not encourage healthy community dynamics. Instead of allowing the community to join forces by breaking up a larger problem into pieces, it encourages siloing and camper mentality.
- abetusk 2y agoI agree. This is also a lack of effort on the journal's part to set expectations of what the reviewers should be looking for in an accepted paper. In the journal's defense though, what most likely happened is that the reviewers were different between submissions and they didn't know about the context. Ultimately, I think, this type of rejection comes down to the mostly the reviewers discretion and it can lead to this type of situation. I cut off the rest of the post but Tao finished it with this: """ ... Being an editor myself, and having had to decline some decent submissions for a variety of reasons, I find it best not to take these sorts of rejections personally, ... """