Dear Steve,

My apologies once again for the length of time that it has taken us to get back to you. In contrast to your own views on the matter, your request for information is not one that we felt could be dealt with in a straightforward fashion, as it goes substantially beyond what we would normally expect authors to provide. In other words, it would involve more than simply insisting on compliance with our editorial policies, and as such we needed to consider your request very carefully before deciding how best to proceed - and for the reasons that I explained in my previous email, we were not able to do this immediately. And I am sorry to have to say that the upshot of these deliberations is that we feel that we have now done all that can be reasonably expected of us, when it comes to facilitating your interactions with Professor Mann. I will endeavour to explain in a bit more detail why we consider this to be so.

With reference to your three main points, I will deal with them in reverse order.

On the issue of source codes, we do not take the view that these are something that in general should automatically be provided on request - the decision of whether or not to do so normally rests with the authors of such codes. What we do consider to be a reasonable requirement is that the authors provide a detailed description of the procedures used, and this is indeed what Professor Mann has supplied in the corrected Supplementary Information (at our instigation, following your original communication with us).

Regarding the question of whether or not 159 series were used in MBH98, this we feel is an issue quite separate from the material that we have published and over which we are in a position to demand a response. Professor Mann has given us the clear understanding that the corrected Supplementary Information now lists *all* of the series used in the paper, and this list is consistent with statements in the original publication (MBH98). The fact that he has separately emphasised to you the need for a number of series greater than those listed in the Supplementary Information is, we feel, something that you should continue to pursue directly with him (along with your other requests for clarification).

And with regard to the additional experimental results that you request, our view is that this too goes beyond an obligation on the part of the authors, given that the full listing of the source data and documentation of the procedures used to generate the final findings are provided in the corrected Supplementary Information. (This is the most that we would normally require of any author.)

I do not want to give you the impression that we are dismissing your concerns out of hand. From the outset, our main concern has been to rectify the potential errors in the original MBH98 publication and to provide the data and materials used on our permanent website - the root causes of your initial frustrations. Indeed, I hope that you are at least in part reassured by the efforts that we (and Professor Mann) went to to rectify these problems in the form of the Corrigendum and the extended Supplementary Information. But having now rectified these problems, we feel that our role in the matter has concluded.

Of course, I realise that you will not be happy with this response. But once again, we feel that we have now taken our usual editorial procedures to a satisfactory conclusion. And let me assure you that we are fully appreciative of your input, which has undoubtedly enhanced the usefulness of the original paper for all readers.

Finally, we do hope once again that your ongoing interactions with Professor Mann reach a satisfactory outcome for all the parties involved.

Best regards,

Karl