Whenever I try to access dmtcs.org lately (the web site of open-access journal Discrete Mathematics & Theoretical Computer Science) I get (not from the front page but from the one it redirects you to) a scripting error, "Parse error: syntax error, unexpected $end in /global/web-serveurs/dmtcs/htdocs/ojs-2.2.4/cache/fc-journalSettings-1.php on line 166". It doesn't seem to depend on which browser I use. And because the web site is broken, I don't know who to contact to let them know their site has a problem. Does anyone know what's going on there?

I haven't published in that journal myself, but I have referred to papers from there, so I want to be sure they continue to exist. The scientific literature is supposed to be permanent. This looks like just a temporary glitch but it's worrisome that it's been this way for at least several days. (It's also worrisome that, going by the numbers of papers listed in MathSciNet, they seem to be slowing down in their publication rate.)

Update Nov 12: After the end of the French holiday weekend, the problem has been fixed and the site is back up again.




Comments:

None:
2013-11-08T18:27:11Z

according to the cached version at google, the editorial board is

Joergen Bang-Jensen
Michael Drmota
Isabelle Guérin Lassous
Mihyun Kang
Anca Muscholl
Hadas Shachnai

So probably one could contact one of them, if hte problem persists

None:
2013-11-08T20:57:05Z

Google's cache says that the editor in chief is Jens Gustedt: http://www.loria.fr/~gustedt/

11011110:
2013-11-08T22:08:02Z

Thanks. I've since received an email from one of the editorial board members who also reported the issue, so it seems like they are aware of it by now.

None:
2013-11-09T07:13:08Z

Hi David,
the problem is known, and I placed a ticket, but due to the long WE in France, Nov 11 is a holiday, this could take some day still until I get the attention of a system engineer.
Thanks
Jens

11011110:
2013-11-09T07:24:13Z

Thanks. It turns out to be a holiday here too, so I'm likely to be offline for a couple of days.

None:
2013-11-09T07:32:22Z

Hi David,
the problem is known, and I placed a ticket, but due to the long WE in France, Nov 11 is a holiday, this could take some days still until I get the attention of a system engineer.

This kind of problems is typical for such a homebrewn server that runs on the website of a lab (here my ex-lab LORIA), and unfortunately you can't do much to that under such a model, DMTCS is basically a money free organization.

There is much more awareness know here in France that such intiatives are important, and that publicly financed research should always remain accessible to the public for no additional cost. This is why my employer, INRIA, has recently decided to set up a real institutional site for such journals. It will guarantee a much better engineering and publishing support, give guarantees for availability and archiving. Basically it will be set on to of the French run "HAL" system, that really is a high quality platform.

DMTCS will be the first journal to run on that new platform. They are currently in beta. Using the new platform for new submissions is scheduled for Jan 1, 2014.

Thanks

Jens

11011110:
2013-11-09T07:46:04Z

The switch to HAL is very good news — thanks for letting me know. And I definitely prefer this sort of low budget open access journal to the ones that charge their authors lots of money for the privilege of being published (which sets up all sorts of inequities and inappropriate incentives).