My work and the problems that most interest me are difficult to discuss with friends and even with colleagues because so much infrastructure is unfamiliar to them.

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.

I acted where I reasonably could to accommodate the most recent reviewers of my probability paper, but each of the reviewers made some rather dire errors. So, along with a revised version of the paper, I wrote responses to the reviews, and on 16 July sent these to the journal that had requested revisions.

The hope for publication rests upon three possibilities. Possibly the reviewers will acknowledge their errors; possibly the editors over-rule the reviewers, either on principle or to protect the reputations of the editors and of the journal.

I think that the chance of acceptance is poor. If the paper is rejected, then I will undo some of the revisions, and seek another journal to which to submit the paper.

Early on the morning of 26 June, I received a set of requested changes from the reviewers for the journal to which I submitted my probability paper about 125 days earlier. I have not read the demands carefully at this point. I am postponing a careful reading until I am better rested, and have had an opportunity to adjust to my annoyance at some of the comments that I encountered in skimming one of the two reviews.

The other of the two reviewers insists that I should write another paper, discussing incomplete preferences. To that demand, I will reply that I have had one paper published on that subject, and that the next paper in the programme is to synthesize such discussion. The lack of awareness of the reviewer about my prior work is an artefact of my selecting a blind review, so that my identity was concealed from the reviewers.

Assuming that the remaining demands of the reviewers can be met reasonably (or that the editor can be shown that any demands that are not met are unreasonable), my paper will be published at this journal.