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This recent question solicits "comments and opinions" about a specific math journal. I've voted to close, but I could not find a discussion here on meta about such topics.

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I agree that this is beyond the scope of the site. If you want to know if a journal is considered good it's not hard to google "impact factor" adjacent to the journal's name. Or maybe browse and see what was published there in the past few years. – Asaf Karagila Dec 22 '12 at 15:28
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I would browse the list of papers published in recent issues, as Asaf suggested, and check if there are good mathematicians on the editorial board. But most likely I would not look at the impact factor of the journal. As an official AMS statement says: “mathematicians have not embraced the impact factor as a reliable indicator of a journal's quality” [ams.org/profession/leaders/culture/CultureStatement09.pdf]. – Yury Dec 22 '12 at 16:21
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Such discussions tend to take place on Academia.SE: here, here, and here. – user53153 Dec 22 '12 at 18:36
There is lot of interesting math behid bibliometrics. That the impact factor is deficient is rather obvious though. – Michael Greinecker♦ Dec 27 '12 at 19:51

1 Answer

up vote 18 down vote accepted

I do not think this kind of question is suitable for MSE. There are many things that people might not wish to say on an open, public website, that they might be willing to say in confidence. And the question does not have an objective answer, but is discussion oriented, which is one kind of question that is generally discouraged.

There are several things a person can do to learn about a journal:

  • Browse the table of contents of recent issues and look at a few papers in your area. If you recognize an author you know, email them directly to ask how their experience with the journal was. If you don't recognize any authors, that's a reason to do more investigation - perhaps the journal is not a good fit for your area of research, if nobody in your area publishes in it.

  • Look at the editorial board. If you recognize someone you know (even in passing), email them privately to ask politely whether they think your paper would be a good fit (it might be less polite to email an editor to ask whether the journal is any good...). If the journal is in your area, but you don't recognize any of the editors, that's a reason to do more investigation.

  • Ask other researchers in your area what they think about the journal.

  • Ask colleagues in your department (the kind who might evaluate tenure and promotion) what they think about the journal.

MathSciNet indexes almost every math journal, regardless of "quality". So the fact that a journal is indexed is not a useful criterion for deciding between journals. On the other hand, if a journal is not indexed, that is a reason to do more investigation.

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