[markgall]

I think this note also misses that there are idiosyncratic factors related to the Journal of Algebra. This used to be a quite good generalist journal focused on algebra -- the Tits Alternative appeared there in the 70s, for example. Elsevier greatly increased the page count in the ensuing decades and it's now mostly dreck. These are papers that might be good to have in print for the sake of completeness of the literature, but nobody is going to send an actual interesting result in algebra there anymore. - An algebraist

[vouaobrasil]

I will say after looking at hundreds of journals and papers, it's also true of the others. -Another algebraist.

[markgall]

I think if you look at a new algebra paper in a good journal, it's as likely to be interesting as a random algebra paper in a good journal from 1980. (Of course neither is anywhere near 100%, there were many boring papers back then too.)

If you look at a new algebra paper in J Algebra, of course it's not going to be interesting, what do you expect.