To my chagrin, I find that I made a transcription error for an axiom in Formal Qualitative Probability. More specifically, I placed a quantification in the wrong place. Axiom (A6) should read I've corrected this error in the working version.

I wasn't otherwise informed of the change, but when I checked this morning I found that a version of my probability paper had been posted to the First View list (and the listing amongst accepted manuscripts removed). So, except for pagination, the final form has been created. (I hope that the error to which I last directed attention of the productions office was corrected.)

On 3 September, I received a galley proof of my probability paper. Setting aside issues of style,[1] there were various minor problems. Of a bit greater importance was that the paper was reported as received on 20 Februrary 2020, the date that the publisher received it from the editors, which was months after the editors had received it from me. But the most important matter was the replacement in a citation of 1843 with 1943.[2] I responded on the same day, noting most of these issues.[3] On 10 September, I was queried about which version of the MSC I'd used for the code that I'd provided, and as to whether there were truly a space in my surname. Again I responded on the same day.

On 6 October, I received a new galley proof. I found no new problems. All of the minor issues that I'd noted were fixed. However, the paper was still reported as received on 20 Februrary, and the citation still had the wrong year. I decided to ignore the first of these two issues, and simply to note the problem with the citation. Again, I responded on the same day.

I have not since received communication from the production office. My paper remains on the accepted manuscripts list, and has not appeared in the FirstView list.

[1] I think that I just have to accept things such as punctuation being moved within quotation marks even when it's not part of the quotation, spaces being removed from either side of em-dashes, and artefact being respelled artifact, though I use the former for a different notion from the latter.

[2] The first clear frequentist challenge to the classical approach to probability seems to have been made in a paper by Richard Leslie Ellis published in 1843.

[3] One thing that I decided not to note was my discomfort over the space between left-hand quotation marks and quoted formulæ.

For several months, just two manuscripts were in the listing of manuscripts accepted by The Review of Symbolic Logic, one on an application of modal logic to set theory which article had been listed on 4 October and mine on probability which had been listed on 20 February. On 25 June, another was added, followed by nine more on 29 June; on 2 July, four more.

I don't know why the oldest two on the list have still not been typeset and moved to the FirstView list. And I don't think that my article will find many readers before it has, further, been assigned to a specific issue. It seems unlikely that the last will happen before 2021.

I have been working on a paper concerned with De Morgan's contribution to an area of probability theory. I had wanted to mention that contribution in the introduction to my probability paper, but saw no way of doing it that would be succinct without seeming occult. I began the new paper thinking that I would finish it in a very few days, but as I engaged in some of the requisite research I found that the task of properly explaining things was going to be still more challenging than I had anticipated.

In the end, the paper on De Morgan will be seen as a minor contribution to the history of thought. Had I known at the beginning how troublesome would be the task of writing it, I would have postponed the undertaking.

On 20 February 2020, a year to-the-day after I submitted my paper Formal Qualitiative Probability to The Review of Symbolic Logic and nearly five months after I was notified that a revised version had been accepted, Cambridge University Press published the manuscript on-line.

(I believe that an unchanging DOI 10.1017/S1755020319000480 will be used for whatever is the latest version of the article, as it is type-set for paper publication and eventually assigned to a specific issue.)

This work was badly treated across journals of philosophy. Regardless of whether any of my future work is perhaps best regarded as philosophic, I will henceforth avoid submitting to such journals.

I've still not heard anything from the publishing team for The Review of Symbolic Logic. I've not heard anything from the handling editor since she told me on 5 January that she'd been informed by the publishing team that they could access the files for my probability paper. It has been slightly more than a month since I repeated the uploading of those files. It has been almost four months since I was informed that my paper had been accepted. It has been slightly more than eleven months since I submitted the paper to RSL.

Although my paper on probability was accepted by The Review of Symbolic Logic on 22 September, it has since been stalled at that journal.

Acceptance was conditioned on my making a reply to the reviewer and my providing a final version of the paper. On 23 September, I uploaded the reply, a copy of my paper in PDF, a LAΤΕΧ source file for the text of the paper, and a BibLAΤΕΧ database. At the private page for my submission of articles to ASL journals, the status of the paper was reported as Waiting.

Some days later, I discovered two errors in one of the entries of the BibLAΤΕΧ database, which errors affected the bibliography. I initially thought that I should wait for galley proofs before attempting to effect a correction; but, on 17 October, I submitted a revision of the database, along with redundant copies of the other files because it was not possible simply to submit a new copy of the database.

From 22 September until then — indeed until 30 November, I'd received no communication from the editors nor from other staff. So I contacted the handling editor and requested information. She had not replied as of 2 December, so I contacted the coördinating editor and requested information. He replied on 4 December with a recommendation that I contact the handling editor, and said that he'd sent a copy of his reply to her. She had not replied as of 9 December, so I sent a copy both to the coördinating editor and to the handling editor, presenting a time-line, noting the lack of communication, and again requesting information.

On 18 December, the handling editor told me that she would contact the typesetters and then communicate with me soon. On 20 December, at 21:06 UTC she sent e.mail reporting that the typesetters needed for me to upload a final version of the paper. I responded that I had done so on 23 September, and that I'd also submitted a revised BibLAΤΕΧ database on 17 October. However, I returned to the website to repeat the process, and found that there was a previously presented option entitled Upload Final Versions; I used this option. and the status became Finals Uploaded. The option continues to be offered. Evidently, when I was told to upload a final version, an editor or some other member of staff failed to do something that would have caused that option to be presented to me on 23 September or on 17 October. And, since none of them were paying attention, no one noticed that months were passing without movement on the paper.

I mention the time-of-day that the handling editor replied to me because it was late at night in England, on a Friday, with Christmas coming in the middle of the next week. There was no discernible action taken on my paper in that next week, nor has there been in the week after it; I imagine that the typesetters have all been on vacation.

On 3 January at 21:44 UTC — yes, again at night on a Friday — the handling editor replied to my message of 20 December, saying that she would again contact the publishing team. I quickly notified her that, on 20 December, I had again uploaded a final version, but had not heard since from them.

Up-Date (2020:01/05): I received e.mail from the handling editor telling me that the publishing team could now access the files. I don't know if, for them to be able to do so, still more had to be done by the editorial staff. In any case, my paper still isn't publicly listed as accepted.

On 22 September, I was informed that my article Formal Qualitative Probability had been accepted for publication by The Review of Symbolic Logic. I do not yet know in what issue it is to be published.

Up-Date (2019:11/03): I have not yet received a galley-proof of my paper nor a copyright-assignment form. I have learned that the journal publishes papers on-line before scheduling them to a specific issue of the journal, so I will probably be in the odd position of having a DOI and a URI before I know the issue in which the paper is to appear.

On 10 September at a little after 17:00 PDT, I sent a message to the handling editor for my paper at the journal to which I'd submitted it on 20 February:

What is the present status of my article, and for what reason does it have that status, whatever it might be?

I've not yet received any reply.

I had waited until the 10th because, discounting the twenty days between when I received the first pair of reviews and when I sent a revision along with replies to the two reviews, that marked the sixth mensiversay.

When a paper has been held so long without a decision, the editor should not have waited to be contacted by the author(s), but should initiate contact. And, given such delay and that the author has asked for information that the editor ought to have at-hand, a query should receive a prompt reply.

Up-Date (2019:09/20): At the end of 20 September in Europe, I sent the following message both to the handling editor and to the coördinating editor:

I believe that my query of 10 days ago continues to warrant an answer, though it has not received one. I recognize that much of the unhappy history of this article at [your journal] has been outside of editorial control, but communication is surely within your power. What is the present status of my article, and for what reason does it have that status, whatever it might be?

As it seems that I should prepare to submit my article to some next journal, I have a couple of lists of journals through which to look.

Four weeks after I submitted a revision of my paper on probability, along with additional responses to each of the referee reports, I am still waiting on word from the journal. The website reporting on the submission is not particularly instructive. Under the heading Status the report says 02/20/19 Waiting; under the heading Last Action the report reads Referee Assignment Request. My guess is that a request to a specific referee candidate has been made by the handling editor. I don't think that the report will be or has been updated to reflect declined requests; it might be updated when outstanding requests have been accepted.

Evidently, a swift rejection did not result from my explaining that the first pair of referee reports involved some major errors on the parts of those referees. But I am not made to feel particularly hopeful; it is pathological that the paper has not already been properly reviewed.