Manifold Atlas: Editorial Policy

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This page describes the editorial criteria and processes in the Manifold Atlas.

The refereeing process is organised and overseen by the editorial board.

1 Editorial criteria

A page is called mature when it satisfies the criteria of correctness, completeness and clarity.

  • Correctness: as the manifold Atlas aims to be a reliable reference for research on manifolds the following two criteria are essential:
    • all information presented on a mature page should be correct,
    • all major statements including theorems, propositions, lemmas, etc, should be justified either by a proof or a reference to the literature.
  • Completeness: completeness is a difficult notion to define. However as the Manifold Atlas is a reference source, articles on a given subject should not ignore essential aspects of that subject. In addition, a mature page should adequately reference the relevant literature for the areas it covers.
  • Clarity: it is important that information is readily and clearly available for readers. This is especially important for the invariants section of articles in the Manifolds chapter but holds for all parts of all pages.

2 Editorial process

After an evolving page reaches maturiy, the managing editor will organise for it to be evaluated by a member of the board: he or she may or may not wish to consult expert referees.

  • After reviewing the page, the evaluation editor may decide to either:
    • approve a page as it stands, requiring only minor changes or no changes,
    • approve a page but requiring significant changes,
    • reject a page.
  • The last two possibilities should be very rare and extremely rare as only mature pages will be refereed.
  • For open-editing pages requiring minor changes, the refereeing editor can simply make the changes themselves or email them to the administrators.
  • For open-editing pages which require significant changes or which are rejected, the responsible editors will write a brief, informative report on the discussion page of the page under reviewed.
    • The report will outline the editor's view of the deficiencies of the page and will serve as a plan for the open-editing community to improve the page.

3 Editorial outcome

  • After an evolving page is approved, a static, citable version of that page bearing the blue approval message is created which links back to the evolving page.
  • Evolving pages which have been approved by the editorial board bear a green editorial message which links to the corresponding static version of the page.
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