GAP package refereeing is being abolished (#334)

By consensus of the members of the GAP council

Co-authored-by: James Mitchell <[email protected]>

Contacts/People/Council/council.md

@@ -8,8 +8,8 @@ subtoc: People
 The GAP Council, consisting of a number of senior
 mathematicians and computer scientists engaged in a broad spectrum of
 areas in computational group theory, was formed in 1995 to provide broad
-policy advice for the future development of GAP. It serves
-as an editorial board, but its interests extend more broadly, to include
+policy advice for the future development of GAP. It served as an editorial
+board for GAP packages until 2024, but its interests extend more broadly, to include
 enhancing recognition not only of GAP itself but also of
 the whole field of computational group theory. This larger role means,
 in particular, that if you become aware of ways in which the Council can
@@ -25,15 +25,13 @@ GAP, and since we may not be aware of your interests,
 we encourage you not to wait to be contacted but to correspond directly
 with any of the Council members if you have information that we can use.
 
-In its role as editorial board, the GAP Council
-coordinates the process by which submitted GAP packages
-are refereed. In that sense, the Council Chair acts as editor in
-chief, and the other members function as "associate editors," after the
-fashion of some journals. It is appropriate to obtain advice on submitting
-a package from any of the Council members. To submit a package, the Chair
-of the Council should be informed (by emailing
-<[email protected]>). For more details, see
-the page on [submission&nbsp;procedures]({{ site.baseurl }}/Contacts/submit.html).
+In its former role as editorial board, the GAP Council used to
+coordinate the process by which submitted GAP packages
+were refereed. This process has been abolished by the GAP Council in
+February 2024, since there are other avenues for publishing software
+that did not exist in the past, such as specialist journals for research
+software packages. We still continue the list of deposited packages and
+encourage all users to submit their GAP packages to this list.
 
 The present ({{site.data.release.date | date: "%Y" }}) members of the GAP Council are:
 

Contacts/People/people.md

@@ -46,7 +46,5 @@ most involved in this help.
 
 Since 1995 a number of senior mathematicians and computer scientists,
 engaged in a broad spectrum of areas in computational group theory have
-agreed to form a '[GAP Council](Council/council.html)' that in
-particular functions as an editorial board for external contributions to
-GAP and will advise on broad policy issues in the continued development
-of GAP.
+agreed to form a '[GAP Council](Council/council.html)' that advises on
+broad policy issues in the continued development of GAP.

Contacts/submit.md

@@ -5,73 +5,40 @@ toc: Contacts
 ---
 
 The GAP group encourages users to make their GAP related work available
-to other users. There are two main categories of external contributions
+to other users. There used to be two main categories of external contributions
 to GAP, those that have been formally accepted in a
 refereeing process, and those that are just deposited.
+However we stopped refereeing new packages in February 2024, and now
+only accept new deposited packages.
 
-Irrespective of this distinction, you may consider organizing and maybe
+Irrespective of this, you may consider organizing and maybe
 distributing your code in the form of a GAP package. The page
 [Information for GAP Package Authors]({{ site.baseurl }}/Packages/Authors/authors.html)
 give detailed advice how to do this.
 
-### Submitting Material for Formal Refereeing
-
-The author of a contribution that is intended for formal acceptance
-should begin the process by notifying the Chair of the
-[GAP Council]({{ site.baseurl }}/Contacts/People/Council/council.html)
-by emailing <[email protected]>, providing full information where
-the complete material has been placed.
-
 ### Submitting Deposited Contributions
 
 You are also invited to provide material that is not intended for formal
 refereeing. To tell us about such material, contact
-<[email protected]>. (Packages can also be put into this category
-while refereeing is in process.)
-
-### The Refereeing Process
-
-At its June 1997 meeting in Oberwolfach the
-[GAP Council]({{ site.baseurl }}/Contacts/People/Council/council.html)
-established the category of "formally accepted" contributions, and
-agreed upon the following procedures for refereeing.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+<[email protected]>.
 
-Materials submitted for formal acceptance as part of the GAP
-distribution, typically packages or proposed additions to the GAP
-library, will undergo an additional review resembling the refereeing
-process for journal articles. As with submitted journal articles,
-authors will have the option during the review process of withholding
-their contributions from being made public in the /deposit directory.
+We will then review your package for certain formal properties,
+and provide feedback based on that, with the expectation that
+after possibly some back and forth your contribution can be accepted.
 
-Upon being notified of the author's intent, the Chair, acting as
-editor-in-chief, will notify the Council about the submission and will
-designate a member of the Council as the associate editor responsible
-for the submission. The associate editor may draw upon the services of
-additional referees, including experts familiar with the programming
-issues involved, to determine whether the material is suitable for
-formal acceptance or to recommend revisions. Once the responsible editor
-concludes that the contribution is ready to be part of the GAP
-distribution, it will be announced to the GAP Forum and listed on the
-GAP Web page, and the materials will be included in the next appropriate
-release of GAP.
+Things we will check include technical aspects such as:
 
-The author should not alter the submitted material during the refereeing
-process without notifying the editor.
+- Does the package pass validation via `ValidatePackageInfo`?
+- Is it clearly distributed under a license compatible with GAP's license (GPL 2)?
+- Does it have an appropriate website which is set up so that automatic updates
+  are possible (i.e. are `PackageInfoURL` and `ArchiveURL` in `PackageInfo.g` valid)?
+- Does it specify a non-empty `TestFile` in its `PackageInfo.g` that can be used
+  to verify that basic functionality of the package works?
+- Can it be loaded together with all other distributed packages without
+  e.g. errors caused by multiple packages declaring global variables
+  or functions with identical name but different content?
 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-The intent of the formal review process is not only to encourage the
-development of the best possible GAP materials but also to provide
-authors with recognition for their professional contributions more or
-less equivalent to that for publication of a journal article. In
-particular, referees are expected to apply standards comparable to those
-they would use for articles. It is not unusual for a referee to propose
-extensive modifications as conditions of acceptance.
-
-A referee will consider the following basic questions in reviewing a
-submitted GAP package.
+Besides these technical aspects we *may* consider questions such as
 
 -   Does the package do what it claims to?
 -   Is its functionality a significant addition to GAP?
@@ -82,25 +49,7 @@ submitted GAP package.
 -   Is the main documentation clear and complete enough?
 
 This last point is especially important. The installation of the package
-must work as described in the installation guide, without help from
-system staff. The package's documentation should include
-straightforward and quick examples to help the user test the
+must work as described in the installation guide. The package's documentation
+should include straightforward and quick examples to help the user test the
 installation, the examples of the manual must really work the way the
 manual says, and the overall documentation should be organized sensibly.
-
-The referee will also ask how the package reacts to unexpected or very
-special input. Does it work for the trivial group, the empty list, etc?
-
-Adherence to these standards is critical both for maintaining reliably
-high quality in the GAP distribution and for providing package authors
-with credible professional recognition of their work.
-
-The Council is actively seeking contributions, not only for formal
-acceptance, but also for all of the /deposit subdirectories. If you have
-materials that might be suitable, please consider making them available
-to the whole GAP community. Please also feel free to write directly to
-any member of the Council about possible contributed materials or about
-any other GAP-related matters of which the Council should be aware. We
-provide a list with the names and current mail and email addresses of
-the [members]({{ site.baseurl }}/Contacts/People/Council/council.html)
-of the GAP Council.

Packages/Authors/authors.html

@@ -106,12 +106,6 @@ <h3>Making Your Package Available to Other GAP Users</h3>
 distribution update mechanism described below. It becomes a
 <em>deposited</em> package.
 </p>
-<p>
-Please, check if your package would be appropriate for our <a 
-href="{{ site.baseurl }}/Contacts/submit.html">refereeing process</a>. If yes,
-we encourage you to submit it! After successful refereeing the package
-becomes an <em>accepted</em> package.
-</p>
 
 <h3>Writing Documentation for Your Package</h3>
 

Packages/packages.html

@@ -27,18 +27,13 @@
 
 <p>
   Some packages  represent a  piece of work  equivalent to  a sizeable
-  mathematical publication. To acknowledge such  work there is a
-  refereeing  process  for  packages.  See
-  <a href="{{ site.baseurl }}/Contacts/submit.html">
-  Submitting Contributions to GAP</a>
-  for  more information on this. We call a package an
+  mathematical publication. To acknowledge such  work there used to be a
+  refereeing  process  for  packages. We call a package an
   <em>accepted package</em> (with GAP&nbsp;3 the term
   <em>share packages</em> was used) when it was successfully refereed or
   already distributed with GAP before the refereeing
   process was started. All other packages distributed here and not in
-  this category are called <em>deposited packages</em>, these may be
-  submitted for refereeing or the authors may not want to submit them
-  for various reasons.
+  this category are called <em>deposited packages</em>.
 </p>
 
 <p>
@@ -97,9 +92,8 @@ <h2>Deposited Packages
 <a name="deppkg"></a></h2>
 
 <p>
-Some of the following packages  may be refereed and moved into
-the section on accepted packages later, others will not be submitted for
-refereeing.
+The following packages were not submitted for refereeing but are distributed with GAP.
+(Note that we formally stopped refereeing packages in February 2024.)
 </p>
 
 <!-- Deposited packages -->