Opinion 195: I am completely
STUMPed
trying to understand how a certain editor of the Electronic Journal of Combinatorics could commit such an
unCHRISTIAN
act: desk-rejecting the Substantially Deep, Important, Original, and "(Most!) Interesting to the readers" submission of Aurora Hiveley (about the Kutin-Smithline Permutation Wordle game)

By Doron Zeilberger

Written: April 14, 2026

On Feb. 9, 2026, Aurora Hiveley submitted this paper to the Electronic Journal of Combinatorics (E-JC) via their web-site.

This article is substantially deep, very important, very original, and should be of the greatest interest to the readers of E-JC. It makes great progress, and, in some sense, proves optimality, of the elegant "cyclic shift" algorithm suggested by Sandy Kutin and Lawren Smithline in their fascinating permutation wordle paper.

Please take a look at the current issues of this "diamond standard" journal, and compare. None of them seems to me more interesting.

Aurora didn't hear from E-JC for awhile, but quite by accident, checked the status in their web-site and saw ONE word:

DECLINED.

The web-site didn't have any attached report. When she inquired with the managing editor, he forwarded it to the handling editor (that will remain nameless), and he claims that he sent, on Feb. 28, the following snooty-pretentious-and-pompous rejection slip

Dear Aurora Hiveley:

We regret to inform you that we have decided not to proceed with processing of your submission "Repetition in Permutation Wordle" to The Electronic Journal of Combinatorics.

Our journal receives a great number of high quality submissions every year, and we can only publish those few that in our estimation have the most substantial mathematical depth, importance, originality and interest to our readers.

We thank you for submitting your paper to our journal. We would be happy to consider future papers of yours for publication.

Aurora checked both the trash and spam folders, and most likely it was never sent.

Shame on you, E-JC editors, for:

  1. Having such poor editorial judgment and mathematical taste

  2. Having such a poorly maintained web-site, with no record of the rejection dates, and nothing attached (even the above obnoxious canned rejection slip). The only feedback (in the website) was that one word "DECLINED".

I was a member of the initial editorial board, back in 1994, when my good friend, Herb Wilf, along with Neil Calkin, started E-JC, that, for a while, was a great journal, and innovative for its time. Alas, like so many other things, it slowly-but-surely deterioated to the present state.

I DECLINE to have anything to do with this "diamond" of a journal, at least as long as the current editors are not replaced.

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