Editors’ Note

Abstract

We welcome our new editors and provide background on an unusual duo of articles in this issue.

As we are starting the tenth volume of Network Science, a few of our action editors have reached the end of their terms and are now handing over their role with the journal to a new generation.

We are indebted to our long-standing editorial board members Fernando Vega-Redondo, Tom Valente, Marta Gonzalez, and Ron Breiger for their devotion to the field and years of service. They helped to steer the journal through its consolidation phase and have earned our sincere appreciation.

With a series of special issues and a procedural overhaul coming up, we are confident that the journal is entering a phase of increased significance. It is therefore with great pleasure that we welcome a group of new action editors who will be instrumental in shaping this process. Incoming are Matteo Magnani, Ann McCranie, Nicola Perra, and Paolo Pin. Moreover, Christoph Stadtfeld will serve as action editor in addition to his role of deputy editor.

Another novelty in this issue is a duo of two commentaries sparked by an article of Leifeld and Cranmer (2019) that appeared in Network Science 7(1):20–51 and has been read and cited widely since its publication.

A follow-up submission later pointed out to us that the article contains a design flaw. Part of what was supposed to be an out-of-sample experiment on network evolution contained terms determined by future states. The reviewing process made it clear, however, that the discussion runs deeper while emotions, in fact, run high.

The reviewing process became difficult rather quickly, and to make the ensuing debate accessible to a wider audience, we invited the authors of that review to write a commentary instead. The commentary was then sent to the authors of the original paper for an opportunity to respond, which they did.

Commentary (Block et al. 2022) and response (Leifeld and Cranmer 2022) are now published together in this issue. We invite readers to form their own opinion on the points brought forward. We certainly expect that the response and your reading will provoke further commentary. However, it did not seem adequate or even feasible to resolve these initial issues in trilateral communications and we found it more instructive to bring the debate to the public.

We did not apply our own opinionated filters in the matter. We think that the publication of the commentary and the rejoinder by the original authors is a service and helps to document the argument. We publish these two articles now to avoid undue delay.