> We reached out to external experts and asked them to act as shepherds, organizing groups to understand the new results. They advised three different release strategies

1. They identified relevant experts for each of the discoveries they wanted to release

2. They collaborated with them to determine how to release the results

The effect for the first two (maths, comp sci) was the same because the experts they chose made that decision.

The downside here is actually the third case (physics). Since they only chose 5 scientists (David Gross, Michael Douglas, Arthur Jaffe, Igor Klebanov, and Nikita Nekrasov) and those scientists chose to keep the results private until they finish their own work. Everyone else who might be interested has to wait.

That was my favouritism aside. Scientists working on similar or adjacent problems that are not included in these kinds of private releases might feel they are not getting a fair chance.

This is a process that will change, but it seems they listened to the anger from the math community and made changes that help address the concerns.