Our general approach to scope is to ask (1) if the topic is worth studying, and (2) if there are no other venues that can offer a substantially better review. If so, we’ll probably say yes. (We generally want to avoid reviewing manuscripts where there are already good existing journals who accept submissions on the topic, e.g., almost all interpretability.) We are willing to go outside our comfort zone to get worthwhile manuscripts reviewed imperfectly if the alternative is they get reviewed nowhere. One advantage of the reviewer abstract idea is that it allows the reviewers to communicate their uncertainty to the potential reader.
Both of the interdisciplinary papers you mention sound fine. In these sorts of cases we may ask the authors to put in special effort in helping us locate qualified (and reasonably unbiased) reviewers.
Review and taxonomy papers are fine, and indeed we’d love to see something that collects and compares various definitions of “agent” in both the conventional lit and the Alignment Forum. For us the question isn’t “Is this novel enough to ‘deserve’ publication?”, it’s “Is this worth writing? Are there at least a few researchers who will find this significantly more useful than what’s already been written?”.
Thanks, we really appreciate the questions.
Our general approach to scope is to ask (1) if the topic is worth studying, and (2) if there are no other venues that can offer a substantially better review. If so, we’ll probably say yes. (We generally want to avoid reviewing manuscripts where there are already good existing journals who accept submissions on the topic, e.g., almost all interpretability.) We are willing to go outside our comfort zone to get worthwhile manuscripts reviewed imperfectly if the alternative is they get reviewed nowhere. One advantage of the reviewer abstract idea is that it allows the reviewers to communicate their uncertainty to the potential reader.
Both of the interdisciplinary papers you mention sound fine. In these sorts of cases we may ask the authors to put in special effort in helping us locate qualified (and reasonably unbiased) reviewers.
Review and taxonomy papers are fine, and indeed we’d love to see something that collects and compares various definitions of “agent” in both the conventional lit and the Alignment Forum. For us the question isn’t “Is this novel enough to ‘deserve’ publication?”, it’s “Is this worth writing? Are there at least a few researchers who will find this significantly more useful than what’s already been written?”.