In the last week or so there has been some discussion on the internet about a paper (initially authored by Hill and Tabachnikov) that was initially accepted for publication in the Mathematical Intelligencer, but with the editor-in-chief of that journal later deciding against publication; the paper, in significantly revised form (and now authored solely by Hill), was then quickly accepted by one of the editors in the New York Journal of Mathematics, but then was removed from publication after objections from several members on the editorial board of NYJM that the paper had not been properly refereed or was within the scope of the journal; see this statement by Benson Farb, who at the time was on that board, for more details. Some further discussion of this incident may be found on Tim Gowers’ blog; the most recent version of the paper, as well as a number of prior revisions, are still available on the arXiv here.

For whatever reason, some of the discussion online has focused on the role of Amie Wilkinson, a mathematician from the University of Chicago (and who, incidentally, was a recent speaker here at UCLA in our Distinguished Lecture Series), who wrote an email to the editor-in-chief of the Intelligencer raising some concerns about the content of the paper and suggesting that it be published alongside commentary from other experts in the field. (This, by the way, is not uncommon practice when dealing with a potentially provocative publication in one field by authors coming from a different field; for instance, when Emmanuel Candès and I published a paper in the Annals of Statistics introducing what we called the “Dantzig selector”, the Annals solicited a number of articles discussing the selector from prominent statisticians, and then invited us to submit a rejoinder.) It seems that the editors of the Intelligencer decided instead to reject the paper. The paper then had a complicated interaction with NYJM, but, as stated by Wilkinson in her recent statement on this matter as well as by Farb, this was done without any involvement from Wilkinson. (It is true that Farb happens to also be Wilkinson’s husband, but I see no reason to doubt their statements on this matter.)

I have not interacted much with the Intelligencer, but I have published a few papers with NYJM over the years; it is an early example of a quality “diamond open access” mathematics journal. It seems that this incident may have uncovered some issues with their editorial procedure for reviewing and accepting papers, but I am hopeful that they can be addressed to avoid this sort of event occurring again.