New journals in which not to publish

Sun 30 Jan 2011 02:50 PM

A number of people have sent me the link to the Journal of Universal Rejection, which has such high standards that it rejects all submissions regardless of quality. As a progressive response to complaints about other journals, it responds to submissions very quickly and even allows simultaneous submissions.

Yet, as documented by Snider (1994), there is always a more extreme version of every extreme thing.

An inevitable next step after JUR is the Journal of Preemptive Rejection, which does not accept submissions nor solicit contributions. Its rejection letter is written as an open letter to the world. "You and your present work do not fit our present editorial needs, and it would not be pessimism to conclude that you will never write anything that could."

Beyond JPR, we have the Journal of Solipsist Studies. Rather than reject anything, it has an editorial policy which denies the metaphysical possibility of submissions; a fortiori, rejection is impossible. Here there are echoes of the Solipsist Web Ring, although they are echoes that no one hears.