The following is the (slightly amended) text of an e-mail message I have just sent to Paula Sonneveld at Kluwer Academic Publishers. It should be self-explanatory. If you agree with me about the questionnaire form, please send a message to Ms Sonneveld (paula.sonneveld@wkap.nl) saying so---it is only by concerted action that we can check the spread of this bureaucratic nonsense. Peter Johnstone ___________________________________________________________________ Dear Ms Sonneveld, I have just sent you a report on paper no. (deleted) by (name deleted), which you asked me to referee for the journal `Applied Categorical Structures'. Having refereed several papers for this journal, I am becoming increasingly irritated by the questionnaire form which you send out with every paper. Several of the questions on this form are invariably irrelevant to mathematical papers, and those that do have some relevance are almost always impossible to answer with a straight `yes' or `no'---the only sensible answer is `read my detailed report'. So it seems to me that the questionnaire is a complete waste of time and paper. I therefore wish to inform you that, although I remain entirely willing to referee papers for `Applied Categorical Structures', I shall in future ignore any papers which you send to me accompanied by this questionnaire. I further intend to publicize this decision via the `Categories' electronic mailing list, and to urge other category-theorists who have refereed for APCS and who agree with me about the uselessness of this form to take the same action. Yours sincerely, Peter Johnstone
I am replying to Peter's letter about Kluwer. I had actually intended to reply to him, but of course replies go to the list. First off, let me say that the simplest solution to the point he raised is to discard the form and write your own report. Beggars can't be choosers and they are begging you. A similar problem with the referee forms used by NSERC, the Canadian granting agency. The forms are pretty useless for mathematics. Many referees follow them anyway and you have to wade through the irrelevancy to get to the meat, if any, of the report. Others ignore the form and simply write a report and those are the most useful. However, I will not referee a report for ACS under any circumstances and I guess those forms are indirectly responsible. I submitted a paper to them on fuzzy models of linear logic. Briefly, it showed that there was a *-autonomous category whose objects were sets and arrows were fuzzy relations. Now, I won't go into the other flaws in the paper as originally submitted, which might well have justified rejection, but the actual reason given for rejecting it was that it was not within the scope of the journal. Since it was squarely an application of category theory, I have concluded that I have no idea what the scope of the journal is and have therefore refused to referee papers for them. I believe that the real reason for the journal's problems are that the publisher deals with the refereeing process instead of having editors for that purpose. It is probably unimportant, since I don't really expect most print journals to be around in ten years. Michael
OK, Peter - you know from Tours that I too detest their questionnaire, and I am happy that you have stirred me into action. I shall write now. Regards, Max.
This is a response to Mike Barr's message of 28 February. I agree with him that the Kluwer form used by `Applied Categorical Structures' is no worse than that used by grant-giving bodies such as NSERC---the British EPSRC forms are every bit as bad as those used by NSERC, believe me--- but there is an important difference: we don't have any `muscle' in arguments with the grant-giving bodies because we are all, to a greater or lesser extent, beholden to them ourselves, whereas (thanks largely to the Internet) referees do now have collective muscle which we can deploy against journal editors and publishers (as Mike rightly points out, they are dinosaurs under imminent threat of extinction in any case), and in my view we should use it if by so doing we can improve the conditions under which we operate. Incidentally, to correct a misunderstanding of my original message which some people seem to have made: I wasn't simply saying that in future I will ignore the APCS questionnaire (I have been doing that since the journal started, in any case), but rather that I will ignore any papers which are sent to me accompanied by the questionnaire---I will only referee papers which are sent without the questionnaire. If we all agree to do that, then Kluwer will very quickly be forced to abandon the wretched thing. Peter Johnstone
According to categories:
Date: Sun, 5 Mar 95 15:07 GMT From: Dr. P.T. Johnstone <P.T.Johnstone@pmms.cam.ac.uk>
or lesser extent, beholden to them ourselves, whereas (thanks largely to the Internet) referees do now have collective muscle which we can deploy against journal editors and publishers (as Mike rightly points
The case against the form is fairly clear (although, so far, I thought it was easier to complete than to discuss). The only question is which muscle should we use: * leftist: flood Mrs. Sonneveld with angry messages, signed something like )8-\ * rightist: dispatch a joint letter, signed something like Internetional Academy of Applied Categorical Referees I doubt that this network will provide for a real flood. For an effect, we'll probably have to act rightist... I mean, seriously, if we all agree, a joint statement will probably do it. Otherwise, I can contribute a message to Mrs. Sonneveld, but it will probably be one of five or so. Regards to all, -- Dusko Pavlovic
I have no speech. It just begins to seem relevant to mention that Peter's original message stirred me to send Kluwer the same thing. John Isbell
participants (5)
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Dr. P.T. Johnstone -
Dusko Pavlovic -
Max Kelly -
Michael Barr -
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