This is a strictly technical question on peer-review systems currently employed in the mathematical literature, not a subjective discussion of merits/drawbacks of such systems, so I think/hope it's suitable for MO.
I have noticed that some journals (e.g. PNAS, CRAS, Nonlinearity…) always publish papers with the name of the editor who supervised the refereeing process ("Presented by X", "Recommended by X", "Communicated by X"). Most other journals, while having editors listed explicitly for each area (and hence in theory one could also know in most cases who supervised what), do not make this explicit.
I was wondering was difference it makes, as a junior author, to have an editor's name on a paper:
- is that a strong endorsement of the paper?
- a way to say that the journal is ultra-strict about the refereeing process?
- simply a full-disclosure practise of the journal?
- an incentive to publish there (when some editor is a "big name", or to make sure a specific person read your paper) ?
It's really not clear to me.
Best Answer
Journals of scientific societies (such as PNAS, CRAS) were, once upon a time, records of meetings and a member of the society would actually present the papers he accepted to the other members, so in this case I believe it's just a tradition. In the case of Nonlinearity it's probably just an affectation. Pay no attention to this stuff.