text:
Is it okay for a professor to leave the classroom only 5 min past the class start if nobody has shown up?
Last week, because of a subway delay due to bad weather I arrived 15 minutes late to class to find out my professor had left 10 minutes before because nobody else had arrived.
Was it okay for him to do that? Would it be rude to complain about this matter?
We are just 4 students between mid 20's to mid 30's, this is a grad school elective course with a single session of 3 hours every week, starting at 17:00 ending at 20:00.
I'm also a former TA and currently a lecturer of an undergrad Physics 101 course, so I'm aware of how it feels when even half of the class is missing.
Update version 2 Today I was the only one to attend (unsure about the reasons my classmates had, the weather was OK this time). And talked to the professor about the issue. He said this situation wasn't his problem. About the weather/commute issue he said this: "Of course I know that happens, I'm much older than you". Then decided there wasn't enough people, handed me the class notes saying we will skip theory again because "everyone is irresponsible" (exact words again) and left. I'm dumbfounded a second time.
Final update I decided to let it be for now. I'm not going to pick a fight alone like a crazy person (my classmates don't see a problem, neither with the professor's behaviour, nor theirs). If the situation takes a turn to the worse, I'll just withdraw for the course and hope someone else teaches it next year. Thanks for everyone's interest :) never expected so many comments!

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

This is something that is going to vary quite a bit from one country to another.  My personal opinion about the ethics of this, for a three-hour class that meets once a week, on a day of a torrential downpour (and I have lived in places that featured this kind of bad weather, so I get the picture): the professor should have waited a bit longer.  Also, it would have been considerate for him to go to an office or library nearby, to get some work done, leaving a note in the classroom.
But I will focus my answer on a positive action you can do, now, about what happened.
You had prepared some questions.  Good.  Now bring those questions to the professor in office hours.
If the professor looks at his watch in a nasty way every three and a half minutes, ignore it and pretend he is being polite.  And be polite.
Do not make any snide or subtle remark connecting your visit to office hours with what happened the day you were late.  You may briefly apologize for being late, if you can trust yourself to do it completely deadpan.
This approach has a couple of things going for it:

You get your questions answered
The professor may put two and two together and realize that it is less convenient to answer questions in office hours than in class.

But don't overdo it.  Don't spend more than half an hour in his office discussing your questions with him.
It might be inconvenient for you to make a special trip to campus just for 20 or 30 minutes in office hours, but it will worth it, as this can be more effective than grousing.
Note: This answer was written in response to the un-updated version of the question.  If OP would like me to write an answer to the question in its new form, a separate question should be posted.

An extended discussion (including comments that are critical of this answer) has been moved to chat. I encourage readers to check out that transcript to get a fuller picture.

I think this is less about regulations and more about respect and conditioning the students. Also, don't feel offended, you are not the (primary) reason for what happened.
Legitimate Reasons for Leaving
Respect
The fact that 0% of the students arrived shows the professor an

immense lack of interest in his teaching subject ("I disdain the subject that you spend years researching and thus I disdain you.")
OR complete disregard of his didactic skills ("You are so bad at teaching, that I don't think I can gain anything from your lecture.")
OR disregard of his personal status ("You are such an unimportant person and your status is so much below me, that you will have to adjust your life to mine and wait for my arrival.")

Even if the class only consists of 5 students, he might extrapolate that everyone has one or more of these convictions. If he waits for students to arrive, he accepts his lower status and/or personal offense.
Operant Conditioning
If the professor waits for students to arrive, they will be conditioned that coming late  has no negative consequences. Canceling the class will incur a penalty to students and might force them to take arrival times more serious in order to gain the advantage of having the course material explained to them.
Recommendation
Communicate (in person or via e-mail) to the professor

that you are very sorry for your absence
state your reasons (should be severe enough)
and make sure to allude to one more of the three points mentioned in the respect section.

If he feels that you have legitimate reasons for being late and that your absence was not a sign of disrespect, I am sure that he will be more inclined to wait longer next time you are late or might even offer you to come by his office to "pick him up" for the lecture.

OP's Update
(This should probably be a new question, since the update significantly changes the circumstances.)
I am very sorry that the professor refused to give a lecture for you alone.
It is not your fault that you were the only present and thus it is imho unfair that you have to bear the consequences.
Updated Recommendation
I would approach him again

start with how unsatisfactory the situation for him and you is

again alluding to the respect section and

then ask him: Why do I have to bear the consequences for the action of other students? hoping that he is rational enough to realize his mistake. Basically you should try to make him understand that he does the same to you that other students are doing to him.

Maybe he was just disappointed about the low presence again and is an overly emotional person. Unfortunately that is not something you will be able to change.
If this does not resolve the situation I would ask around the department for existing regulations regarding this.

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[I don't think this was part of any extended discussion, so I'll copy it here again.] Frankly, I don't understand this answer at all. (1) A legitimate reason for leaving is that professor has better things to do with their time than sit on an empty lecture hall. Otherwise I don't see how deducing that students don't show enough respect is a legitimate reason for not doing their job. (2) Whether you need to state reasons for absense depends highly on the local culture. In my university (in Finland), I would be very confused if a student started explaining why they missed my lecture.

I think the first section is frankly ridiculous and unprofessional. A professor should not be reading so extensively into perceived personal slights that they refuse to do their job.

@k_g: I agree: He should not. But he did as I interpret from OP's updates. What you probably mean is that behavior described in the first section is "ridiculous and unprofessional" and not the answer itself?

@problemofficer Correct. I think that explaining in such a matter-of-fact way gives the impression you support such behavior. Sorry for my misinterpretation.

If my classroom was empty a full five minutes after class was scheduled to begin, I might start wondering if, unbeknownst to me, class had been cancelled for some reason. I don’t know that I’d leave after a mere five minutes, but I would certainly start thinking about it by then.
To prevent this from happening again, perhaps the best solution is to make sure at least one student is on time – even if you all have to draw straws to figure out who that will be.
There is really too little information provided to say much else. You have omitted a lot of critical details, such as the size of the class, how bad the weather was that day, and how habitually students wander in late to class. If the majority of the class is rarely on time, your professor might have been using this as a chance to teach a lesson about promptness, manners, and the value of an education.

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Generally, Professors have the authority to schedule their classes as they see fit in accordance to their department policies, i.e. tests and assignments. Ultimately, cancelling class is usually at the discretion of the Professor in question.
If you are concerned with missing out on class materials taught on that day, or if attendance is part of your grade, it would be wise to send an email to the professor indicating that you were present on that date (albeit late due to the subway delay) and that there was no one present in class.

Key word in the first sentence is "schedule", and in the second sentence "cancel". Disappearance and radio silence is not "scheduling" or "canceling". Both of those involve communication.

@Mehrdad Standing up during the scheduled class and saying "this class is cancelled, any objections?  None?  Ok, see you next week." is communication at a time when students are supposed to be present.

@Yakk: Every single time I ever had a class cancelled, it was announced via email or similar. Not during lecture. Students have interviews, doctor appointments, sometimes even kids that make messes, etc... you announce in a manner such that people with legitimate reasons not to be there can be aware of the cancellation.

@Yakk Sure, you could argue that, but did he do that? I bet he didn't even bother to do that.

"Stuff Happens".
You don't say how bad the bad weather was, but I'll assume if it was bad enough to impact your commute, and if NOBODY showed up to class, the prof had some reason to assume that nobody was going to show up.
Been there, even from the teaching perspective.  Once, I allowed an extra 90 minutes for a 30 minute commute, and the commute ended up taking me FOUR AND A HALF HOURS.   I missed my class, and did my best to get word out to my students.
Would I have waited a bit longer to leave if I were the instructor in your narrative?  Possibly, especially if the weather weren't that bad -- but if it weren't, it's not that unreasonable to expect that if students are going to show up, that they show up on time -- especially graduate students.
Flip to the other side of the coin ...  you were late, and presumably only once.  Do you think your teacher would be justified in calling the head of your grad program to say that you're an irresponsible student?

It was raining lightly at the beginning and heavily when I was halfway there. Some areas in the city are prone to small floods, that's why my train got delayed. About the last point, it never occurred to me to go as far as talking to his superior. My intention is to bring the topic to the professor himself in the less aggressive way.

@AnnGreene -- then complaining accomplishes little.  If you would like to start a communication with the prof asking directly what his attendance policy with regard to lecturing is, and to ask that he wait 15 minutes or so before calling it a day in order to better accommodate commuting students, that might be more productive.  It is quite odd that NONE of the students were there by the start of class.

@AnnGreene By all means feel free to explain the situation to your professor, but be prepared that they're probably going to tell you to be on time next class. If your city is really prone to flooding on a regular basis it sounds like you should be leaving 30 minutes early on rainy days. Showing up 15 minutes late for a professional meeting of any kind reflects badly, regardless of whether it was out of your control.

I guess it was kind of frustrating for your professor, too - imagine yourself to prepare a lecture, and to go to the lecture room... and noone shows up, and then you have to re-plan all the future sessions in order to catch up with the missing lecture.
You certainly may make a complaint. But then he alike may dock points for being not there when the lecture started (...or, even worse: remember your name). Thus, I'd strongly advise against complaining: You should cooperate.

Few Professors are so unprofessional and petty as to hold something like this against a student.

...but a single one will be sufficient. I mean one should not start with being petty by complaining, especially not when being too late oneself.

"re-plan all the future sessions in order to catch up with the missing lecture"?? Really? No one showed up. I would consider the lecture as already given.

I'd hope the professor already remembers everyone's names in a four person elective grad course. If the professor is so absent-minded or uninterested to not remember four student names, there are bigger issues.

@DSVA sorry to hear that - but that's not the way it's meant to be. After all, the professor's task is to open a door into a field of knowledge, and to provide insights - not to get over with the lectures.

@DSVA Being grown-up shouldn't hinder one to being helpful. Ideally, a lecturer has an intrinsic interest to disseminate knowledge (at best, of the own field of work), and to facilitate progress and new insights... that's why I dislike the "I'll just skip that, since you missed my lecture" approach so much. - See, I'm working in natural sciences; and most of the time, it's all about "getting the idea, and being able apply it in a prolific way", not about "knowing the content of the lecture". But I've heard it's different in other areas.

@DSVA I still believe it would be very wrong to skip important and possibly safety-related matter. Think nuclear physics or medicine. "The topic will still be in the exam and that's it"? No way.

@DSVA "the Prof. isn't skipping it, the students are."  But a student did show, and the prof wasn't there... so it sure seems like it was the prof who skipped...  "It's not the Professors duty to force the students to learn something, it's his duty to provide all the information and skills needed if the students want to learn something." Well OP showed up to learn, and the prof failed to fulfill his duty.

@JackAidley and even if they are (some unfortunately are), most universities (including every university I know) have a "be anonimously evaluated by a committee" thing

As a TA you should also know that teachers, like students are allowed to leave after a certain period of time if there is a no show.  This may change based on university policy, but most schools I have attended give the students 10 minutes before they are able to leave if a teacher does not show up.  Most schools make an attempt to avoid this by sending another faculty who is free to the class to stall for time until they can find a sub OR release people.  Why should teachers not have the same luxury?  Even if you showed up 15 minutes late and was the first person to arrive, by technicality he would have still been gone.
You also made no mention to attempt to tell him you are arriving late.  This is something you can easily see.  You are stuck on a train, there are issues, bad weather.  You see it is 10-15 minutes before class starts and not having any success in showing up on time.  Email the teacher and notify him that you are running late.  The teacher is aware of the bad weather.  They had to get through it too or can look out the window and see.  No students, no one tried to contact him until after he left.  He figured everyone took advantage of the weather and left.

We don't have a written rule about how much time do we/they have to wait in my University. 5 minutes of a 3 hour class is less of 3% of the period, that's why nobody expected he would leave so quickly and without warning. It did happen to me once, nobody out a class of 50 showed up. I waited roughly 20 minutes, gave up, posted a message in the class's website and then left.

Oh ya, by no means is he completely innocent either.  He could have left a message on the door saying... due to weather, class has been cancelled as no one has shown up on time and the arrival time of students is unknown or what ever he may want to put on there.

+1 for "tell him you are arriving late." This is absolutely expected in the private sector, and is a clear sign that you respect their time, no matter what they decide to do with the information.

Given your update.
I do not believe what your professor did was OK.
What he should've done:
"Since most of the class is not here, I am not going to cover any new material today. Do you have any questions about previous material? Anything you want me to explain in more detail?"
If your questions lasted for only 5 minutes, then you guys would be done in 5 minutes.
The way he handled it: calling you "irresponsible" by generalization and then leaving was just plain rude and unprofessional.

As a former university professor, I can only speak to my experience.  Students were required to be in class, whether or not the professor was in attendance or not.  The reasoning is that perhaps the professor was late and/or a substitute was on the way.  However, this policy is entirely up to the individual school.  If many to most of my students were missing at the start of class, personally I would assume there was a transportation issue.  I would wait a reasonable amount of time and then start the class.  However, if all the students were missing, I definitely would think something is amiss and would investigate.
If you have an issue with your professor's actions, talk to the faculty supervisor, or whomever might be in charge, and discuss what transpired an why you were frustrated.  That is the best course of action.

I would like to mention the Academic quarter. But this rules for students waiting for professor, not vice versa. Complaining is not really the option since it was impolite from students to be absent at all. It shows disrespect.

I am not sure what "academic quarter" has to do with this; usually, there is no vagueness in the starting time there it's just a style to indicate a particular starting time.

Upvote for mentioning the Academic quarter. This also works outside academia. Depending on the situation, if someone does not show up in 15 mins, and there are no messages from that person that they are going to be late, you can leave.

@Andrei did you check the site that is linked to? In my experience, It has nothing much to do with being late, a lecture announced for 14 c.t. will start at 14:15 sharp, as opposed to somewhat after 14 when everybody is ready etc.

@quid Just checked link. I thought the academic quarter is applied in the case when the professor doesn't show up within 15 mins from the beginning of the lecture. Then, the students can leave without any consequence (if the attendance is checked then they can't be recorded as being absent).

@quid I know academic quarter in the same sense as Andrei

@VladimirF likely a regional difference. Anyway the linked to page just seems to mention the usage I am familiar with, and not the one intended in the answer, which makes this quite confusing an answer.

I don't really understand all this talk of "disrespect". The professor's job is to teach the class, not get all upset about students not providing some requisite level of deference, then going off in a huff. I would definitely file a complaint.

For a regular class (with at least 10 people, say), as a teacher, if no one showed up after 10 minutes past the beginning of the class, I would assume that there has been some mixup with the schedules or something like this. I would probably leave to investigate if the class is waiting for me elsewhere, or ask the school administration what is going on.
For a class with 4 people, in my opinion, the teacher should have a phone number or email address for the students, so that the teacher can reach them easily in case something like that happens. To me a class with 4 students is essentially like a meeting: if someone is missing from a meeting, you'll probably try to get touch with them, ask what's up, and reschedule if there's a good reason for the person being late.

Your university probably has a written policy covering a situation like this.  Read that before deciding how to proceed. (The policy may only cover the responsibilities of the students when the professor is late, though.)
At a minimum, I'd go to the head of the department and complain that the class has effectively been cancelled for a full two weeks of the semester.  (I know you don't want to make a fuss but you are not getting the educational services you paid for.)
If the professor is unwilling to stick around when only one of the four students has shown up, he may want to convert the class format officially to distance learning.

There's probably policies with the school or in his handouts from the first day around this subject. If it's not explicitly written, then it would be assumed that it's okay. Most policies are put in place to the benefit/aid of the professor so that he/she can facilitate a learning experience to students with little to no obstacles. The school entrusts in their professors to provide the best experience and leave most judgement calls with them for many areas from bad students to cancelling classes.
Having said that and going with "not explicitly written", as long as the professor tailors the homework and tests to his skipped lecture, there shouldn't be a problem. I see it from both his perspective and yours. He should have sent out an email to everyone when he left to state that class is canceled, but otherwise he was not in the wrong.

For a class of 4 it might be appropriate to share your phone number (or whatever means of communication you both happen to use) with your professor. That way, you could contact him in advance whenever you're late or unable to attend, and he could notify you whenever he's late or has to reschedule class for some reason.
Complaining doesn't sound like a good idea, as it can easily backfire since nobody came on time. Unless the weather was so bad that a state of emergency was declared, I doubt that a subway delay is a valid excuse for being late. At the very least, check the policies your institution has about no-shows and being late: it may so happen that you're just as wrong showing up late than your professor is leaving after 10 minutes.

He gave us his number but never responds (at least when I tried to contact him).

@AnnG - But did you try to contact him in this particular instance? If no attempt was made to contact him to make him aware you were running late, then I don't see how you can "complain" that he wasn't there after nobody showed up.

'Is it okay if...' won't get you anywhere.
Drop the blame-frame. Instead, try to tell the professor upfront what you need, but without judgemental language or assumptions, thus putting neither of you on the defense.

For the last class, I arrived 15 minutes late and saw that you weren't there. I'm sorry I was late and l'll do my best it won't happen again. I
  really need to learn xy (and want to discuss issues yz), but for
  that to happen I need to be able to trust that the lessons won't be
  canceled. Could you perhaps wait at least 15 minutes
  before walking out of class the next time students are
  late?

Notice what judgements or diagnosis this doesn't entail:

You are wrong and I am right (nor vice versa)
You waited too little and the students were only slightly late
You waited only five minutes (you're just assuming this in your question)

Of course, the professor can still say no. That's just the nature of a genuine request. But you increase your chances of getting a yes if you say precisely what you need and why, and avoid blaming and assuming.

Sorry, but mere asking the professor to wait at least for 15 minutes would be (for me) a sign of disrespect from the student. C'mon, the student is the one that wants something (you can say that the prof wants his subject to be popular, but this is an "alibistic" argument), so unless the circumstances are unavoidable (like short breaks between classes in different buildings), it's the student's job to be on time. On the other hand, it's a good point that trying to find blames on the prof is not a way to go.

the student is the one who wants something - exactly; and to get it the student can either ask a genuine request or play moralist ('is it ok if prof doesn't do what I want'). I think the former is more likely to get the student what she wants and less likely to be perceived as disrespectful. Because the answer can be 'no' without the professor becoming 'not ok'.

I've been teaching at universities for 20-ish years, and, while I've never heard of there being an actual rule, I'd say that 15 (20 if you're feeling generous) minutes (for both students & teachers) is the standard. If it came to it, there's no way your prof could justify leaving at 5 after, especially during a storm. For the first 15 min., I'd agree with a previous poster that he's being paid to be there; after that, he should go do other work. I would have emailed him email immediately, saying that you're in class and wondering if class was cancelled. He would then have to explain. That way you have proof of the time; plus,it would not come across as aggressive to wonder where "everyone" is. Then you'd have it all in writing just in case. He'll recognize this (these days profs- depending on tenure status - worry a lot more about complaints & bad evals than in the past), so doing this will put him on notice that you are going to require explanations if he pulls stunts like these in the future (again in a nice, non-aggressive way :).
Situation 2: Canceling class due to low enrollment -- barring any additional mitigating factors -- NEVER justifiable. It stinks to have to teach one person, and I could understand his being annoyed because it might require completely changing his lesson plan, etc. However, that's part of being an instructor. Plus, it's not your fault, so being rude to you is indefensibly unprofessional.
Solution: You could discuss it with him directly, which is the "correct" answer, but you know that may very well blow back on you (he's clearly a jerk). Realistically, I think that after the fact, the only "safe" options would be to ding him on the evals (written comments carry a lot of weight these days), to do nothing, or to withdraw. At the time, I would have gone with a surprised, "Wait. Why?! I'M here!"  Because, while he might still be a jerk & leave, you'd have (non-aggressively) reminded him that you're there, having paid good $$, and it doesn't matter if no one else comes. This  would have required that he respond -- even if it were something rude ( more info to use in a bad eval or complaint).
Sorry, I don't have any fabulous solutions; I'm just looking realistically at what a typical student who wants to avoid any negative fallout would probably feel comfortable with.
Good luck!

This probably isn't going to be popular here, but:
No, it is NOT OK for the professor to leave early.
They get paid a salary to teach classes.
As such, you cannot just abandon your workplace just because there's nobody in class. A poor analogy would be a doctor leaving office for 2 hours because a patient with an appointment didn't show up within 5-10 minutes of the appointment time, except that the doctor is on a retainer and was already paid for the appointment previously.
It is absolutely irrelevant whether this shows disrespect from students. Or whether it's a good way to teach them manners. Or whether there are 5 or 50 students in the class.
The only thing that's relevant is that you, the student, are a customer whose money (in the form of tuition) is paying for the salary of a professor who's paid to teach the class.
At the very least, what the professor did is unethical and immoral.
At the most, it may have violated their employment contract or university rules.
Either way, contact the department and complain, preferably obtaining evidence like testimony from other students, weather report from that day, etc...
UPDATE: To address some points raised in comments:

Yes, I agree that there are other things a professor is paid for than teaching class. Some parts of those job facets can be done while sitting at a desk in class, waiting for students (perhaps with a laptop); so if the issue is best utilization of professor's time, there are valid solutions NOT involving leaving the class after 10 min.
No, it's not reasonable to assume that being 10 min late for class is something outrageos in bad weather. This is graduate school - people come to class from work; and/or have families to take care of; and don't necessarily live on campus. Throughout my life, I had commutes which literally jumped from 1 hour to 2 hours one way in bad weather - in a major metropolitan area with advanced mass transit.
While it's rather disrespectful to be late, and bad form, and unprofessional - the bottom line is that the student pays for the privilege of being in that class and the professor is paid to teach it. That's a fundamental asymmetry in expectations.

I could understand calling this immoral or unethical if the students were primary school pupils coming to an after-school activity from which their parents would pick them up later, but when the students are adults they are generally assumed to be capable of taking care of themselves (and of taking responsibility for their own education).

@PeterTaylor - what does that have to do with students? The question is about actions by a paid professor. "They started it first" is precisely the primary school grade excuse that should NOT be employed by a salaried adult.

Given that it is a grad school elective course with four students it is not even a given that they get paid for teaching this course. In addition, do you believe that if in such a situation the professor and/or the students see the need to schedule an extra session to make up for the omitted course, they would get paid extra?  Either way, I feel this focusing on getting paid is besides the point.

@quid I researched that point before posting this question, and no this class isn't ad honorem. Honestly I wouldn't dare to complain if that were the case.

(Frequently, Doctors' offices will have a stated policy that patients arriving more than 10-15 minutes late may be required to reschedule)

This does not reflect reality at any institution I've ever been apart of, even the small, liberal arts schools that really emphasize teaching. The dept. chair or dean at a larger school would laugh you out of their office for suggesting that the professor needs to sit in an empty room accomplishing nothing. Teaching is a major obligation of professors no doubt, but my faculty handbook describes it as one of nine responsibilities of a faculty member.

@DarrenRinger - that's because they have a backlog of patients so next patient is being seen.

@DVK Are you suggesting that professors have nothing else to do than to teach class? See my comment above. This includes student-oriented activities like answering emails and working on lectures.

I've only ever been a graduate student, but my understanding is that teaching is the secondary (or tertiary or beyond) occupation of professors.  Research and publications, which attract grant money, are generally their primary occupation and interest.  That said, five minutes does seem pretty quick to give up on a class.

My comment is about your description of the actions of a paid professor. If you had called them unprofessional then I would have disagreed, but I would not think it completely unreasonable. If the late arrivals had been children and the professor were in loco parentis then I would agree that the duty of care made "unethical and immoral" a reasonable description. But given the actual circumstances I think your choice of language is far too strong. The most that anyone suffered was inconvenience, and (leaving aside division of blame) causing inconvenience can be rude but is not immoral.

@PeterTaylor - no, the OP suffered the loss of 45 to 105 minutes of a class they paid for.

@DVK, even if you are completely right from a "simple" technical point of view, you may forget about how academia works. Teaching is sometimes more of an art and not a simple job. Imagine there is an artist giving a performance for a concert and everyone shows up too late. If the artist quits the show, it is quite "difficult" to get your money back. Or in academia, the professor could "simply argue" that this lecture was intended to be like that. An empty classroom. Whatever that helps. But as an (artist) professor, he is even allowed to do that. So technically, he has the right to do that...

Suppose that thirty minutes later, one student arrives. What then? Should the professor proceed with the lecture, and somehow cut thirty minutes of material from it? Or, if you are suggesting that the professor has an obligation to teach because that's what he/she is paid to do, should the lecture be given to an empty room, starting on time?

As a TA (not a Professor) you would not have convinced me that I'm paid a salary to stand like an idiot in an empty classroom. Now, ok, 5 minutes is too early to give up, but I'm really not buying your argument if it's much more than that. (Of course in the case of a 4-student graduate course things are different.)

Faulty reasoning. When I pay for a movie or a show and I'm 5 minutes late, they won't let me in. That's because it's not a kind of activity that can be performed well with the audience walking in and out at their leisure. The same holds for certain teaching activities. If you pay for those  and then don't show up on time, it's your loss.

@reinierpost OP did show up on time, see the update.

@Akavall: huh? no.

@reinierpost, Did you read the question?: "Update version 2 Today I was the only one to attend (unsure about the reasons my classmates had, the weather was OK this time). And talked to the professor about the issue. He said this situation wasn't his problem. About the weather/commute issue he said this: "Of course I know that happens, I'm much older than you". Then decided there wasn't enough people, handed me the class notes saying we will skip theory again because "everyone is irresponsible" (exact words again) and left. I'm dumbfounded a second time."

@Akavall: one question at a time!

Sorry, but this is a ridiculous attitude.

For me, the professor is bound for three hours (within your class timings). He should spend all time in the class or library and conduct class as any student reached. For me, ethically, legally it is not allow him to quit the class after 10 seconds of wait. He can do this only if he certain that no one will come to join class or students are too rude, not take class properly on time.

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава


text:
Query regarding possible status of submitted paper
I have submitted my paper in June, 2016 in an Elsevier math journal. Around first week of June, 2017, replying to my personal query, the handling editor informed me that he has sent the reviewer's decision to the editorial board. The current status of the paper (for almost three weeks now) is "decision in process". Now I am quite confused regarding the possible outcomes. In my experience, after reviewer's report, author gets the information within a week. Therefore it would be really helpful if somebody could help me in the above matter.
PS1: After my submission, the journal has not asked for any revision and the status went directly from "under review" to "decision in process".
PS2: I am quite aware of the typical workflow of a journal. But my question is not regarding the process.

Why not ask the editor again?

The editor and his assistants do not have always time to update the status of the submission. Do not worry about your submission,  it should be going through the usual processes. If it will take longer than normal (depends on your field), you can write a nice email to the technical editor asking about the status of your paper

I doubt that you are quite aware of the workflow of that particular journal. The related wisdom found on Academia SE appears incorrect too. AFAIK (from personal experience as handling editor for an elsevier journal), the editorial system here is a two-tier system: there is the editorial board and there are specialist/handling editors.
The handling editor deals with the reviewing and submits their decision to the editorial board (or the editor in charge), who in turn base the final decision (as communicated to the author in the decision letter) on the handling editor's suggestion. So, in your case

the handling editor has obtained the reviews and submitted their decision to the editor/editorial board; what this decision may be, you cannot know: it can be 'reject', 'accept without change', or 'revise' (most likely);
the editor(ial board member) in charge has not yet processed this case.

This is mostly likely because they are away on vacation or conference/work related leave. If you don't get a decision within a few weeks, you may inquire with the editor in chief or the clerk.
Note also that with this process the status always changes from 'under review' to 'decision in process', regardless of whether you will be asked to make revisions.

I strongly agree with the view on 'vacation' or conference related leaves. My colleagues do this often and the review or editorial works keep pending to be finished in the coming semester.

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text:
Are magazines (journals) "Scientific American" and "Popular Science" peer reviewed?
Wikipedia says that New Scientist publishes articles which are not peer-reviewed.
But I found no information about "Scientific American" (SciAm) and "Popular Science" (PopSci).

The question in the title (Are these journals peer reviewed?) is different to the one in the body of your question (Is there an algorithm to find out if they are reviewed?). Can you clarify which you are asking?

Why should they? They don't publish research papers.

"Journal" doesn't even seem to be the appropriate word. As SciAm's website states, they're a magazine, not a journal.

Are these journals? I don't think so.

Where exactly does WP say that about New Scientist? (I couldn't find it in the article). And how do they word it? Worded like you do, it almost seems that any paper sent in is published, without even having a look at it.

@JAB New Scientist used to be a magazine, years ago. Now, its mostly random noise. To quote from its own website, https://www.newscientist.com/in209-guide-for-freelancers/: "New Scientist is not intended as required reading for professional scientists, as a public service or as an educational tool." As an example of a feature written by a freelance journalist that they did publish, they give this: "In this feature I will look at voodoo death and tell the story of an Alabama man rendered near death after a late night argument with a witch doctor." Yeah, right....

@alephzero wrong person quoted

On New Scientist:  link from Russian wikipedia article reads: "Editors of non-peer-reviewed journals - New Scientist included - have a far greater responsibility than those in the peer-reviewed world to filter out distortions."

From the Scientific American website:

Generally speaking, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN presents ideas that have already been published in the peer-reviewed technical literature. We do not publish new theories or results of original research.
Please allow six to eight weeks for the review process.

From this and other submission instructions on that page I conclude that the manuscripts undergo a general review that is probably aimed at accuracy and style, which is different than typical scientific peer-review of original research.
No scientific peer-review is mentioned in the relevant page on the Popular Science website either.

It's review in the sense of editorial review, not peer review, in other words.

Neither journal is a peer-reviewed scientific journal, both are popular science journals. So (1) they don't publish original research and (2) the aim of the review process is completely different. In particular, reviewing is done to ensure that the article is suitable for the scientifically minded public, i.e. avoids complicated math and difficult terminology, but hardly to scrutinize correctness (or even originality).

Re: #2: Peer-reviewed journals also typically referee to ensure that the article is suitable for the intended audience. It's just that their intended audience is different.

@Makyen Yes, that was a slip of the pen. I have changed "refereeing" to "reviewing". Thanks.

These are not academic journals, but magazines which report on stories of interest to the public.  They source their stories from peer-reviewed academic papers from various journals.
That is, they are not the primary place of publication or the original paper for any of the research presented within; they are simply reporting on research published first elsewhere.
So.  Is the research they cover peer-reviewed?  By and large, yes.  But it has been peer-reviewed elsewhere, in another form - and has been reported on by a journalist specialising in science, who did not write the original publication or do the experimentation themself but is seeking to expose it to a larger audience.
You are given the opportunity to consult the original publication; each story that originates from a scientific publication should cite its source.

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text:
Journal ranking statistics on scimagojr vs. the "prestige" of its editorial board
My advisor and I are considering where to submit a paper based on my thesis. Originally we planned to submit it to Journal X, but an opportunity arose to submit it to Journal Y following a conference invitation (where "X" and "Y" are so named to preserve the generality of the question and my privacy).
Journal X is a popular journal with a distinguished editorial board. On ranking sites such as scimagojr it appears to be ranked Q1 or Q2 depending on the subject field with the rest of the statistics similar.
In recent years, 2010 and onwards, Journal Y seems to significantly outrank Journal X in virtually all the statistics offered by scimagojr (e.g. its H-index and "impact factor" are several times higher), though their subjects of interest only partially overlap. It ranks among the top 5% journals in its listed subjects (it seems to have exploded in 2010 or so). So, to me it naturally seems a better target for publication.
The issue is this: my advisor (a well-known researcher in his field who knows a lot of people) is unfamiliar with this journal, and is generally unfamiliar with its editorial  board, which seems to him of not very high quality. As such, though he seems impressed by the rankings, he is unsure if I should submit it to this journal and left the decision to me.
The question is this: how should I weigh the "prestige" of the editorial board of a Journal as compared to the more numerical statistics offered by scimagojr? Should I be concerned that my advisor doesn't know anyone on the board?

What field?  (How significant and meaningful are the statistical differences?)

Sumbit where you think it will have a better visibility. Rule of thumb: do not submit to a journal that you barely know any member of the editorial board. You want to maximize the impact of your paper and, as such, submit somehwere where it would be most appreciated both by the editorial and by the readership of the journal.
I do not think it will do your paper a big favour to submit to a journal with high (possibly artificially infated) statistics than to one well known and well respected, with distinguished editorial board most likely to take good notice of your work and, consequently, you.

One thing to note is that the publication in Journal Y is a special issue of invited papers from the conference. So I would say it is already appreciated in a sense, if that is what you meant...

@mich you should take into account also the potential readership.

With regards to potential readership, the journal has partial fit, but the -conference- has good fit. Since this is a special issue of the proceedings of the conference, should I weigh into account the journal or the conference more?

@mich being a special issue for a conference, does not necessarily means that this journal is the best fit of your work. There might be other reasons on why this journal was selected (or was offered). In my opinion, it is better to submit where you think it will be more appreciated. Be also advised that "rankings" mean very little in the sense that some journal are very reputed although their official rankings are lower than other journals.

Ultimately I came to the same conclusion, which is why I accepted your answer :-)


text:
how to ask supervisor for a recommendation letter for scholarship?
I've just started my master in Canada and I just passed one course so far and it was with my supervisor.
could I ask my supervisor to fill out a strong reference letter for me for a scholarship? or should I find another professor?
Please note that I am receiving some funding from my supervisor right now. Asking him to fill out the recommendation letter would be harmful?
how should I ask him? could you please guide me through writing an email?

Why not just talk to him?

In general, be polite but write as if you were talking to an actual, normal, nice person.
Your request should include some brief information about your motivation, the scholarship, its requirements, and how they apply to you. It should also help the recommender to recall who you are. And you should ask for a strong letter. If the recommender doesn't think they can write a strong letter, consider asking someone else instead of requesting a letter from them. I've highlighted those keywords in my example below.
Also, the supervisor is a good person to ask for a recommendation.

Dear Dr. X,
I am currently applying for the Donald Duck scholarship for graduate students in the field of comparative quackery.
  I am aware that you only know me from the course on boat programming, which I concluded with a paper on applied quackery, but I was wondering if you were able to write a strong recommendation letter for my application.
As you may recall, I would like to continue my work on applied quackery in my MA thesis and include some comparative elements.
The scholarship is quite competitive. It is only awarded to students who are expected to be part of the best 5% of a school's cohort. The Duck family's mission is to promote candidates with a rounded education, so it might be of interest that I am taking extracurriculars in ancient philosophy and volunteer as rugby coach at a school in my neighborhood.
I would be extremely grateful if you could write a strong letter of recommendation until 15 January 2019. The letter must be submitted online at www.duck-quackery-studies.edu.
Please let me know if you think this is possible, and if you have any questions.
Yours sincerely,
Nikki

Depending on the local culture and the relationship to your supervisor, you may want to be less formal than this. But a letter like this would work also in Germany, which has a rather more hierarchical and less easy-going culture than, say, the US.

Politely, concisely, confidently, and as far in advance as possible.

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text:
How to remind professor of a gift that they promised but haven't delivered?
I answered a challenging question in one of my courses by e-mail. The professor replied that I won a gift card for buying stuff from the university.
It has been 2 months he has not issued the gift card.
Is it normal if I ask him to issue it?
If yes, what is the appropriate way?

This seems like a great opportunity, actually. If you can go visit him in the office just ask if the gift card offer is still open. He will probably slap his forehead for forgetting about it. Keep it low key. But it is a good thing to make a connection like this. Even bumping in to him in the hall would be a way to raise it.
If you can't visit in person, an email would be fine. Just remind him of the question you answered and ask if he forgot about the gift card or whether some issue came up. Just be direct. You don't need to be bashful about such things.
Edited to add: It would also be good, no matter how you do it, to thank the professor for the problem you solved and for the offer of the gift card. The reason for thanking him for the problem is that it, I hope, increased your learning.

the problem is that it is hard to meet him and I have to write an email. Writing it through email is tough.  I do not want to be rude since he might think that I like money.

When you write, also thank him for both the problem you solved and the gift he offered. Nothing rude about that.

@Elena93 No one dislikes money

@Elena93 If you have to write an email just keep it short, concise and polite. The advice in https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/90725/how-should-i-phrase-an-important-question-that-i-need-to-ask-a-professor applies.

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text:
Is it feasible/acceptable for me to convey my concerns to staff regarding performance of classmates on coursework reports?
I am currently doing Physics undergrad at a first tier university. Due to my previous experience in Mathematics and slightly advanced age (five years my classmates' senior) I look at my classmates from a different perspective, and am honestly slightly disturbed.
Despite having received a class in LaTeX (with the express purpose of encouraging its usage) most students continue to use Word for reports (with sometimes shambolic results), most students neglect bibliographies, and I've witnessed students using only Wikipedia as a source, even when I pointed out that some of the information was inaccurate and referred them to a paper with correct information.
I've talked to one of the librarians, and he virtually pleaded for me to bring up such issues with the staff. Stating that he'd like to give a course on how to use the library, access online papers, write a report etc. to first years. Most students I've talked to were unaware they had free access to most scientific publications, and almost none seemed to have ever read a scientific paper.
I'm not quite sure what to do. On the one hand I feel it's not really my place, and I have other stuff to do, it's not my fault if other students are sub-par, and they are unlikely to go very far anyway.
However, in second year (approx half of students fail out after first year in physics), my partner in Experimental Physics performed so poorly I ended up doing almost everything myself in order to ensure my continued good grades.
I got special commendations from two of the three PhD students overseeing my three projects (the third didn't have the time to actually grade my report yet), though I personally feel my reports were simply on par.
Is it feasible, or even acceptable, for me to communicate concerns with staff, or to relay the request of the librarian with my own concerns added?

I'm not quite sure what to do. — You do you.  Offer to help other students if you see an opportunity, but don't force it; their performance is really none of your business.  Meanwhile, thinking about transferring from a "top-100 university" to a school with a significantly stronger physics program.

@JeffE I realise these lists are based on tenuous methodology, so I understand the sarcasm I just wanted to indicate that it isn't some third-tier nothing school. I actually only just now looked at the rankings for different departments, and Life- and Physical- sciences are lowest rated. But you may be right, I'm starting my Master's in 2017, switching shouldn't be too hard.

You didn't say how advance your age was, but welcome to the awkward 'real world'. In industry Word is common, as is the horror of mixed fonts and templates. The academic ideals are replaced by other goals when you get there. Do keep helping others and making the faculty a better place where you can, but but don't expect any rapid change soon. Remember 50% will be below the median! They will work in areas that use a different measure, hoping to be above the median in that ;-)

most students continue to use Word for reports Nice to see that some students resist the hype and focus on content instead of loosing hours worrying about how frugal their typesetting looks like.

@PhilipOakley I'm curious do you consider consistent fonts an "academic ideal"?

@CapeCode, At my dayjob (Engineering), especially with newer versions of Word, I often meet font (and template) incompatibilities in large documents and reports, usually because of the multiple origins of the component parts and the parts one wants to insert - some times one just has to go with the horror. Latex (which I don't use), and it's use in acedemia, does greatly reduce that issue - it was designed for good typography (IIUC)

It's not clear what you're asking us, exactly. Are you asking whether you should tell your professors that you're disturbed by your classmates' lack of attention to detail in their reports? Whether you should try to raise your classmates to your higher standards (how?)? Tell someone that the librarian wants to teach a course for first year students (surely the librarian is in a better position to do this than you are)? Something else?

Please [edit] your question to make it clear what you're asking about. "Will acting on this help future students" is ambiguous - you need to specify who, acting on what, and in what way.

@CapeCode That would be ok only if their typesetting shouldn't be read by anyone else. Decent typesetting helps readability. And poor readability typically has also the unpleasant side-effect of lowering grades.

An undergraduate student is absolutely in no position to make any institutional changes in regards to the problems you've observed. In many cases, even the full professors have little ability to change the situation, due to departmental or administrative requirements for certain passing rates or median scores out of a class, etc. Possibly the faculty have seen this, and/or counseled concerned students about it, hundreds of times already.
You should take some amount of confidence that this is evidence you're ready for your next big step (which seems well-timed, in that your Master's starts next year). You know how to properly research, cite, support, and use LaTeX to write a paper; and you will doubtlessly be using those skills in your next position.
Frankly, the librarian was very much out of place to put the burden of responsibility for this on an undergraduate student. I call "foul" on that.

The librarian was probably just sharing their similar frustration with "students", and how they never learn. Twas ever thus. They just grow up and a new batch take over the mantle of being the 'will they never learn crowd'.

That seems backwards. What kind of system doesn't allow participants to at least help to instigate institutional changes? I can understand that no individual would have a large influence, but if the OP has some ideas about how things could be improved, it is a major flaw of the system if they are unable (or even discouraged by individuals such as yourself) to make these suggestions heard and participate in the regular improvement of university life.

@Morgan It doesn't sound like the OP has any new ideas about how things can be improved (presumably the librarian has already raised the idea of a course for first year students). Rather, the OP has a frustration that is most likely shared by many at his/her institution, but that nobody has a practical solution to.

@ff324 Well the librarian in question seems to have some solution, and the problem may in fact be that the course/college organisers have not perceived enough student interest in the solution to go ahead with it. In what world is expressing concerns a bad idea? I'm mostly shocked at how dismissive all of the reactions to this question have been.

@Morgan If you have a better, specific idea about how an undergraduate can affect institutional change, then perhaps you could write up your own thoughts as an alternative answer.

@DanielR.Collins I have done so. My concern is that it is hugely important for any department to properly receive student input, both for the long-term improvement of the institution and because indifference on their part can diminish the experience of students trying to help their classmates, which can go on to damage the perception of said institution in the long run.
Rebutting OP's concern for their peers' performance with the suggestion that they should instead be satisfied with their elevated abilities and do nothing has a net negative result.

@Morgan You confuse a null result with a negative result. Quixotic crusades are an actual negative result.

This is not the place for me to argue over how idealistic it is to expect provision for students to adapt and improve over time. It's sufficiently clear how our positions on this matter differ. I hope this discussion adds positively to the answers we've provided.

It is very unlikely that any action on your part would help future students. The issues you report are already visible to the professors.
They can see whether reports lack bibliographies, or have bibliographies that reference Wikipedia. They could set marking rules that penalize those things to such an extent that students would have to do better, if they thought it appropriate.
If they cared, for some strange reason, what tools students are using to prepare their reports they could insist on reports in the preferred format.

I mentioned the Word thing because I've been in a working group where several students edited the same document and it ended up with a mess of different fonts, font-sizes and text alignments, not to mention LaTeX looks infinitely better.

@Feyre Multiple people editing the same document without attention to standards and consistency can be a mess, regardless. Suppose they used LaTeX, and picked different packages for the same formatting function?

@PatriciaShanahan I guess, but the university has official LaTeX style guides. I ended up spending half an hour converting the end result.

Surely a complaint or comment on the part of a student can only encourage positive action? Why so dismissive?

@MorganRogers the OP needs to be clear what his/her priorities are. At this stage, actually learning stuff should probably have a higher priority than trying to make the university a better place (measured using his/her own definition of "better") for future students. From a position of zero influence and power, and presumably in a minority of 1, complaining about things that only affect other students but not the OP him/herself is just time-wasting.

To answer your specific question, "Is it feasible, or even acceptable, for me to communicate concerns with staff, or to relay the request of the librarian with my own concerns added?", it is certainly OK to share your concerns. But recognize that, as other answers have indicated, the staff at your university are not blind to the work that your peers are submitting; they may have similar concerns, but lack the practical ability to do anything about them.
The natural question that arises then is: if the staff does not have the ability to address your concerns, what can you, as a student, do on your own? Here are some things that have proven effective in my experience:

Understand that your peers are dealing with personal and academic challenges, some of which they may have in common with you and some of which they may not. Realize that what is important to you is not necessarily as high a priority to them. You will be much more successful if you are able to address your concerns in a way that also addresses things that are important to your peers.
Get involved in student clubs and organizations, and organize workshops and other club events to help your peers gain useful skills. For example, as an electrical engineering undergraduate I was on the board of my university's IEEE student branch, and we organized workshops on technical and soft skills, participation in student research competitions, and other activities for our peers.
Look for opportunities to get more involved in your department. If you are the undergraduate research assistant who attends all the department seminars and helps faculty and graduate students with their research and teaching, the well-known and effective TA for the first year physics labs, or someone else who all the faculty in your department know and respect, your suggestions and concerns will be taken more seriously. Not because your concerns are unwelcome now, but just because you don't have a lot of insight into the inner workings of your department, what they are struggling with, and what their priorities are.

"Affirmative action is better than complaining is better than doing nothing."

20% of what undergraduates learn is the technical content of their specialist curriculum, and 80% is general life skills such as managing their time, learning how to learn, and learning how to communicate and collaborate (and how to use technology to prepare documents). Because of your previous experience you've got a head start on the other students in those areas, and you shouldn't be surprised by that.
What should you do? The same as I do on StackOverflow: offer my advice, and sigh inwardly when it isn't accepted.

In the UK, most universities have academic skills modules which are often mixed with employability or the research skills module. So students are likely to know what the standards are.
Universities also have academic review boards although with different names such as the academic integrity department or the institutional compliance board which would be able to take in your views and pass this down to the programme leaders.
If you feel that other student's work is not up to standard you can raise this issue with the board, programme lead or the dean of the school but how they will implement your idea will be considered academic judgement.
In my opinion you should not submit this in the form of a formal complaint as there can be unwanted consequences.
Other students can however make an appeal to the review or assessment board if they feel that the teaching standards are not being observed and the outcome will be much like extenuation where they would be allowed to retake the assessment.
Furthermore, the students can take the university to court under breach of contract or on basis of procedural impropriety, etc.

To extend ff524's response, there is in many universities a Student Representative system, where students elect a few of their peers near the start of the academic year to pass on their concerns and questions to faculty and board members who control the running of their course. Becoming (or at least interacting with) relevant student rep's is in theory a good way to have your opinion heard. As an older student with more experience of university life, you would be an excellent candidate for such a role.
A vital point is that you mustn't let yourself be discouraged from positive action: too many universities suffer from their senior staff retaining and endorsing outdated or inefficient practices out of indifference, despite change being in the students' best interest. It may well be that the staff can't do much, but it could equally be that they consider other issues more relevant for discussion, and that which is being improved at any given time can be greatly affected by student demand.
In this example, the librarian you spoke with has probably requested funds and and a small amount of curriculum time for their idea, but whichever board they applied to has seen it as an unnecessary hassle or decided that there is not enough demand. Getting your opinion heard through, for example, student representatives could be helpful to many who don't even realize what they're missing.


text:
Submitting paper proving "X" soon after paper proving "X-epsilon"
I am a math postdoc, currently working on some conjecture. To avoid going into details, let's formulate it as follows: "every runcible doohickey is cromulent". A senior colleague told me last year that if I proved it, it would make for a "really nice paper" (that's her words).
Eight months ago, I found a partial proof: something like

Theorem 1: Every runcible doohickey is cromulent, unless it is in one of the families A_n, D_{2n+1} or E_6 (informally, this accounts for "less than half" of all possible families) and is larger than some minimum size.

(if you want details, the paper is here: https://arxiv.org/abs/1605.03833). I wrote it up and submitted it, to Journal A (a good but not top journal). It is currently still under review.
A few days ago, I finally completed the proof of

Theorem 2: Every runcible doohickey is cromulent.

(the paper is here: https://arxiv.org/abs/1612.08942). Following the suggestion of my colleague, I would like to try my chance and send it to Journal B (a top journal).
The problem is that the proof of Theorem 2 is really similar to the proof of Theorem 1; a lot of passages in the former are almost verbatim copies from the latter. (Of course I always disclose when it happens). There are still some significant differences:

the definition of the central object of the paper had to be changed, adding a significant layer of complexity;
a lot of intermediate proofs and definitions no longer worked, and had to be either considerably expanded or completely rewritten;
paper 2 is generally cleaner and better-organized than paper 1 (despite the additional complexity);
in paper 2, I proved an intermediate result that was not present in paper 1, and that maybe has some value on its own (though a colleague told me that in her opinion, it was just a trivial consequence of some results proved by our PhD advisor).

The issue becomes even more serious if you look at it backwards. Should paper 2 somehow get published before paper 1 (which is not completely ruled out given the vagaries of peer review in math), it would make paper 1 totally worthless, as almost every statement from paper 1 can be obtained as a particular case of a corresponding statement from paper 2.
(My feeling is that in an ideal world, paper 1 should have never been published. However I was in a rush to get published in time for job interviews, and I had no idea how long it would take me to get to Theorem 2.)
A few questions:

Do you think there is any chance that, if the reviewer of paper 1 learns about Theorem 2, they will reject it, saying "this paper is not interesting, as it is just a particular case of Theorem 2"?
Do you think it is likely that the presence of paper 1 will prevent paper 2 from being accepted by Journal B (which has high standards)?
Should I go as far as to retract paper 1 before submitting paper 2? (However the reviewers of paper 1 probably wouldn't be too happy about this!)
I am also considering the following course of action: submit paper 2 to journal B, and suggest that they talk to the editors of journal A and that they assign to paper 2 the same reviewers as for paper 1 (if they are so inclined). Is it acceptable to do such a thing? I see two reasons for doing so:

The altruistic reason is to avoid wasting the reviewers' time. Both papers are quite long (73 pages for paper A and 89 pages for paper B), and someone who has already read A would have a MUCH easier time understanding B.
The selfish reason is that it could speed up the review process (and help the paper get published in time for job deadlines).

Any other advice about what to do in this situation is welcome! My main preoccupation is to maximize my chances for getting a job; the relevant deadlines for publication acceptance are roughly March 2017 and March 2018. So far I have only two publications, both in medium to good (but not top) journals. I would especially appreciate answers from mathematicians, as I have the impression that standard practices differ significantly from field to field.

EDIT: my judgments about journal rankings were initially maybe too harsh (see comments below Pete C. Clark's answer). I did this mostly out of modesty, as I looked at it from my perspective and from the perspective of my potential employers; however I forgot to consider the perspective of the editors or reviewers of the journals themselves. I apologize for this little blunder; I corrected it.

Based on the difference between Theorems 1 and 2, wouldn't it be a bit more accurate to say that you proved X/2 and then shortly afterwards X, rather than X-epsilon and then X?

Well, you are right: calling it "epsilon" is maybe not quite appropriate. (Not sure if it is possible to change the title?) In fact, here is the way I see it. My "partial cromulence theorem" is actually the next-to-last step in a chain of maybe 7 or 8 generalization steps, starting from the construction of the first example of a cromulent doohickey (back in 1983) and going all the way to the "full cromulence theorem". The structure of the proof remains the same, but each step adds a little complexity. But it must be said that the last step is probably among the hardest.

@IliaSmilga you can change the title, but based on your explanation I now think it is appropriate, or more precisely, strikes the best balance between being accurate and helping to make your question as interesting and general as possible.

"Retract" is a strong word. You probably mean (and would be better off using) "withdraw", which is a lot easier on the ears.

If I were hiring math faculty, future interviews would certainly need to include assessment of familiarity with the partial cromulence theorem.

This is a great question, and one that I (and probably most mathematicians) feel sympathetic to.  In most projects I've worked on, there is some tension concerning the issue of when to cut it off and call it a paper.  Sometimes there is a lot of tension.  (At least your papers are singly authored.  When you are dealing with collaborators, most likely everyone feels that tension, but the forces imparted on the various coauthors are rarely identical and are sometimes all but antithetical.)
The first thing that I want to say is: take a breath and realize that it shouldn't matter too much in the cosmic scheme of things.  This kind of thing is exactly why recommendation letters play such a large role in hiring decisions.  You definitely want to get letters from people who will attest that you have proved the "Full Cromulence Theorem" rather than just the "Partial Cromulence Theorem".  The more eminent your recommenders, the more trust you will be extended and the less pressure you have to "show your hand" at any point in time.  But since you already have complete preprints available, in a purely mathematical sense you're done: you've proved the Full Cromulence Theorem and people will take that into account.
The second thing I want to say is: I strongly recommend that you talk to mentors and/or senior people in your field, including your thesis advisor and postdoctoral supervisor.
Okay, but since you asked: I don't think there's one clearly best way to proceed, and I think that you are choosing between things that everyone would regard as reasonable.  You could absolutely withdraw the first paper from Journal A and submit the second paper to Journal B, explaining to both journals why you've done so.  Then it's a good shot that they will get in touch with the referees of the first paper.  Or you could do the same thing but not withdrawing from Journal A: it is not at all your fault that some months later you proved a better result.  Finally, you could ask to replace your older submission to Journal A with your newer submission.  But it sounds like by doing so you feel that you would be selling yourself short, which I find very reasonable.
To address your specific questions:

Do you think there is any chance that, if the reviewer of paper 1 learns about Theorem 2, they will reject it, saying "this paper is not interesting, as it is just a particular case of Theorem 2"?

Anything can happen, but that would be a distressingly poor thing for the reviewer to say, given that s/he has already had the first paper for many months.  I wouldn't worry about it.

Do you think it is likely that the presence of paper 1 will prevent paper 2 from being accepted by Journal B (which has high standards)?

This is a bit more likely, but I think the fact that paper 1 has not yet appeared works for you here.  If paper 1 appears in Journal A, then in the minds of some referees and editors it could "put a lower selling price" on the Full Cromulence Theorem: someone can say that the real breakthrough occurred in the proof of the Partial Cromulence Theorem, and even that was only worthy of publication in Journal A, so the new mathematics added in attaining Full Cromulence is not worthy of Journal B.  That sounds bad, and it is bad, but look: excellent journals can reject papers by making rather harsh decisions about their value.  They do so all the time, and moreover they have to do so.  It would be more worth your time to convince the community of the value of the Full Cromulence Theorem than by worrying about what the journals might do.
In fact it could also go the other way: if your community does not know what to make of cromulence theorems for doohickeys, then Journal B, upon receiving an 89 page paper on the topic, could say "The author is working way too hard -- and taking up way too much space -- to prove something of uncertain value.  We're not sure that anyone cares about results of this kind."  Well, if you publish a partial cromulence theorem in a mid-tier journal, then the community is clamoring for cromulence theorems.  Just imagine how much more valuable a full cromulence theorem could be.
So you can't know.  Prove the best theorems you can, promote them as best you can, and try not to lose sleep over whether your promotional campaign was the right one.

Should I go as far as to retract paper 1 before submitting paper 2? (However the reviewers of paper 1 probably wouldn't be too happy about this!)

As I said, you certainly could.  If you do, you should explain why, and give the editors a chance to enlist the same reviewers for paper 2.  But fundamentally it's your work, and you can do what you want with it, including withdrawing it.  (By the way, I think it is not clear that the reviewers wouldn't be too happy about it.  It is unfortunately possible that they spent very little of the eight months reading over your 73 page paper, in which case they could be quite relieved to have it off their plate.)  I would say though that rather than definitively withdrawing the paper, it seems better to explain the situation to the editor and suggest withdrawal.  At that point the editor may want to contact the reviewers, and if they are mostly finished the job and like the paper, then that may end up expediting the publication process.
Good luck, and congratulations again on proving that every runcible doohickey is cromulent.  Full cromulence!  I hope you are proud.

I believe the technical term is "perfect cromulence".

Thank you for this detailed answer; this is immensely helpful! It would be even more helpful if you could also address the fourth bullet point. Would it be normal/acceptable/reasonable to contact Journal B and suggest they coordinate the choice of reviewers with Journal A? (and is it in my interest?)

@Ilia: I'm really not sure, honestly.  One comment: you don't know anything about the referees for paper 1 except that they have spent nearly 8 months with your paper already and haven't finished it.  Since paper 1 is 73 pages, that's not too long by any means, but neither is it any evidence that they're acting with alacrity or are better than other referees in any way.

In my own dealings with journals I have almost always felt that choosing the referees is really up to the editor, and that they can come to me if they want assistance (which they sometimes have) rather than the other way around.  One thing you could do is write to the editor before formally submitting to the journal, explain the situation, and ask for their opinion.  This gives them the chance to suggest what you want.  It also gives them the chance to suggest other things...

As a side remark: I looked on your webpage, and "So far I have only two publications, both in low to medium-tier journals." I am not intimately familiar with Geometriae Dedicata, but I am pretty sure it is a quite respectable journal.  For sure Annales de l'Institut Fourier is a very good journal.  A low-tier journal means something else entirely.

@IliaSmilga I think the idea in your fourth bullet point is very good. It is not a common thing to do, but that is beside the point. Your intentions are honorable and your logic for why this makes sense is very solid. In your email to the editor of journal B, be polite and make sure to phrase this as a suggestion and make clear that you accept the editor's decision to act as they see fit. The worst thing that can happen is they'll ignore the suggestion.

I am sorry if I did not make myself clear enough; I have never had any doubt that both of them are serious journals, but maybe they do not quite look impressive enough. I must say however that I have very little clue about which journals are good and which are not. In fact, my judgment was mostly based on the impact factor.

@Ilia: I am impressed that you have a publication in Annales de l'Institut Fourier.  Anyway, pro tip from one pure mathematician to another: f$\cup$ck impact factors.  They are not what we use to evaluate journals.

Excellent advice! One thing I might add is that it may be good idea to consult the editor of Journal A. They may have a good idea of how much time the reviewers have already spent (at least they can ask the reviewers!). Even informal "half-way" statements from reviewers gotten in this way may be helpful (in deciding what to do). The editor has most likely been there before, and is likely to be sympathetic.

that would be a distressingly poor thing for the reviewer to say, given that s/he has already had the first paper for many months and given that you presumably mention in the Full Cromulence Theorem paper that this is like the Partial Cromulence Theorem you already proved, only more general and therefore better. Anyone who's reviewing math papers should understand that. Worst case, they think you were going for LPUs.

This answer reflects very accurately my experience in research mathematics. I think it is as good an answer as possible, excepting that I might be a little stronger in encouraging the OP not to withdraw the earlier submission.

After thinking a little, I edited the question so as to change the rankings of the journals to something more diplomatic.

Any other advice about what to do in this situation is welcome!

Well, you are in pretty good company -- the best, in fact -- for proving X soon after proving X minus epsilon. Albert Einstein published the main ideas for the special theory of relativity in his famous paper On the electrodynamics of moving bodies dated June 30, 1905... except that the theory was incomplete, since he had not realized its implications for mass-energy equivalence - the famous equation E=mc2, which nowadays everyone agrees is a crucial part of the theory. So he published that part soon afterwards in a second paper, Does the inertia of a body depend on its energy content?, dated September 27, 1905.
Oh well, progress in science is just messy I guess. Einstein managed to get a job based on his Annus Mirabilis papers, though I seem to recall that it took him a few years.
As for what to do, Pete Clark's answer is just cromulent.

I will add that I'm familiar with other examples --- much more recent and in mathematics --- of authors proving the full version of a result mere months after releasing partial versions, and publishing both.

Is the Partial Cromulence Theorem considerably easier to use and/or understand than the Full Cromulence Theorem?  Does it cover a large fraction of the potentially useful applications?  (Your "X-plus-epsilon" phrasing implies that this is indeed the case.) If so, then I would argue that both papers have value, just to different audiences.
If I don't need the awesomely frobingent power of the FCT in order to demonstrate that my runcible minacule is both bracticating and cromulent, I may well be perfectly delighted to have the PCT available for direct citation, allowing me to use it with far less comment and/or explanation than if I had to invoke the FCT in its entirety.

Someone who just wants to apply the theorem directly (and does not care about the proof) would obviously prefer the full theorem, as its statement is shorter, more elegant and easier to understand.
However, someone who wants the proof would obviously prefer the partial theorem (if they can get away with it), as its proof is more straightforward.
From my (limited) experience, the latter is quite likely to happen. When I had to borrow results from the literature, I was often unable to directly apply them and had to redo the proof (of a suitable variant).


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Oral vs Poster vs Workshop. Which is the most prestigious in the context of Computer Vision and Artificial Intelligence?
This question is mainly about the perceived prestige of various events at conferences. Is there a hierarchy to it? Asking this in the perspective of being the presenter. Another way of putting it would be is "10 oral papers on my resume better" or "3 oral, 3 posters, 3 workshops, 1 tutorial on my resume better".

Oral
Posters
Workshops
Tutorials
etc.

A detailed post regarding which is the most prestigious and why would be appreciated.
Example conferences:

Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR)
International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR)
Association of the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)
International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML)

0. Invited/plenary talk at the main conference
1. Paper in the main proceedings with an oral presentation
2. Paper in the main proceedings with a poster presentation
3. Everything else

Having a paper in the primary conference proceedings is more prestigious than not having a paper in the primary conference proceedings.  If I understand how CVPR, ICML, and the like work, that means (oral presentations and posters) are more prestigious than (workshop, tutorial, or other).
Only a small number of CVPR/ICML/etc papers are accepted for oral presentation, so having a paper with an oral presentation is more prestigious than having a paper with a poster presentation.
Workshops and tutorials are apples and oranges.  A workshop presentation is more likely to be associated with your own original research (if only in preliminary form).  On the other hand, a tutorial presentation is a significant community service, and being invited to give a tutorial is a mark of community standing.  I would rank tutorials slightly ahead of workshop papers, but I'm sure not everyone would agree with me.

Actually, as of 2022 all accepted main track papers in ICML are oral. Some are "spotlight", which is like a short-oral in other conferences.

I am going to give you a partial answer, waiting for a more complete explanation of your question. The highest prestige is in giving an opening or closing speech at a plenary session in a big conference. Then the same kind of talk at a secondary conference. Then a oral presentation at a parallel session in big confernence in your field, followed by oral/parallel/small. Poster in my opinion comes after all of this. Not sure what you mean by workshop, and tutorial. If you are the one leading the workshop, giving the tutorial, it's a big thing. If you are just attending, then it counts as training yourself, not educating others.


text:
Why are new encyclopedias being published when there is Wikipedia?
Recently, I have noticed that I have been visiting Wikipedia more and more frequently for finding information on technical materials that I need for my work and research. Over time, I have noticed that many entries on Wikipedia are well-referenced and reliable and also, I have found it rather comprehensive, at least in my field of work and study. Consequently, I wonder if it is necessary to publish and/or purchase new technical encyclopedias? Is it merely because Wikipedia is not still very comprehensive or reliable that new encyclopedias are published or updated? If the answer is no, then what are the reasons that authors and publishers still invest on encyclopedias?

Your experiences with Wikipedia do not entirely mirror mine. Even nominally generic articles may be a battleground for edit wars and bruised egos. It is a nice place to quickly start, but rely on it with a large grain of salt.

@JonCuster You may be right that my experience with Wikipedia may not overlap with yours. Honestly, although I have seen edit wars on some public entries, I have not seen them on technical entries in my field of study. However, this may be true for other fields or that I be unaware any in my field. Ergo, I believe that you have pointed out to something that cannot be dismissed easily. Please and if possible, provide your point of view as a response. Thanks.

@mazhar what is your field of study?

@SSimon study Computer Science (Machine Learning and Statistics).

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's not about academia.

Because of its anonymity, nobody is ultimately responsible for the veracity of the information. This is one major point which makes Wikipedia vulnerable and of limited sustainable reference value. That is not to say that there are not excellent entries there. Unlike free software, there is no easy way to say that the article is wrong on less well-understood or contentious topics. An authored article at least has someone with a reputation to lose on the producing end of the text. Plus, if you know the reputation of the author, you can judge how far you want to follow him/her.

The 'responsibility for the veracity of the information' is a point that I find plausible reason. Thanks.

I guess you enjoy anonymous peer reviews.

@mazhar beware that Captain Emacs might not be a real name  ;)

@FranckDernoncourt Anonymous peer reviews sometimes permit themselves things which they wouldn't if their name were known :-) But, good point. As for my name here ;-), everyone can make their own judgement whether my argument is sound. I am not referring to hard-to-check facts which require extensive literature research.

Any encyclopeia, no matter whether some randomers name is buried somewhere in the back of the book, is still a tertiary source and shouldn't be used as a reference or source for anything academic. There are also wiki's where people with expertise like academics can sign off an existing wiki page as being correct/reasonable. So the criticism doesn't even really hold.

@Murphy The question was: "Why new encyclopedias are being published when there is Wikipedia?", not whether they could be used as reference. Also, what you seem to refer to in the second sentence seems to be things like "Scholarpedia", which indeed address some of the problems I mentioned. Again, the question was about Wikipedia. If you were to re-edit the OP's question to "Scholarpedia", my response would be less pertinent. Still, while in the latter articles will have better quality control, they do not need to be curated to be comprehensive in topics.

I personally am not completely satisfied with this answer, because in my view it puts too much importance on the reputation of the author rather than on the quality of the content.

@FedericoPoloni The quality of the content in non-technical topics cannot be judged on sight and by non-experts. In history, for instance or similar topics the reputation of a paper's author is what gives a first impression of the quality to expect; of course, a great author can ruin their reputation, but again, this does not go unnoticed. One can write scientific-looking articles which are arrant nonsense. But this is much easier to check for yourself in math/theoretical computer science, harder to check in physics and from there it goes downhill. Wikipedia users aren't experts.

There are a number of specific policies and practices of Wikipedia that reflect judgment calls, and it's perfectly reasonable to treat them differently for different projects:

Above all, creators of another encyclopedia might want to exert editorial control over the product. The rest of this list expresses some of the specific ways they might do that.
Wikipedia explicitly aims to serve a general audience; another encyclopedia might be designed for an expert (or afficionado) audience in a certain field
Wikipedia contributors may be anonymous, and the majority are
Wikipedia maintains a strict egalitarian ideal, which makes it difficult for subject matter experts to exert special authority
Wikipedia's peer review mechanisms are very specific; publishers of another encyclopedia might design them differently
Wikipedia's standards for sourcing, and its threshold for inclusion, are very specific; publishers of another encyclopedia might design them differently
Wikipedia has very specific standards around copyright of text and media

On my connections to Wikipedia: I have been editing Wikipedia (almost exclusively the English language edition) as a volunteer since 2006. I designed the first formalized program to support university instructors assigning Wikipedia composition, on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation, in 2010. I have run a Wikipedia training and consulting company, Wiki Strategies, since 2009. I have served as editor in chief of the Signpost, Wikipedia's volunteer-run newspaper, since August 2016.

+1 I think this response is more equitable than the currently-accepted answer.

Thank you, Daniel Collins. I'm new to this site, so I very much appreciate the encouragement. ff524, is the statement I added adequate to meet your concerns?

Yes, that's great. Thanks a lot for the note at the end, and the great answer that comes before it :)

I should mention that my answer was not intended to criticise Wikipedia and to precisely answer the question. It contains a treasure trove of information, some of which I was completely unaware of before. However, in topics I know well it really shows an imbalance on what points/attention are being attended to, strongly coloured by fashion. One (not exclusive) symptom of that is that pages on fictitious TV show universes can be longer than those on real events. It comes with full egalitarianism, which is fine. But, as in reading newspapers, I sometimes like to know where they are coming from.

@CaptainEmacs, I don't disagree with your answer at all -- I added mine because I think there are some more general considerations worth calling out, not because I disagree. You make good points.

You don't want to rely on one way of doing things for something that crucial. Every way of doing things, however great, has its weaknesses. For a robust provision of such crucial services we need different systems to coexist and compete. That is the big contribution of Wikipedia; it improved the robustness of the system by adding another way of doing things. However, it should not undo that benefit by becoming too dominant. Not that I see any immediate danger of that happening, in part because of the reasons mentioned by @CaptainEmacs.


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Project progress massively impacted and supervisor leaving university
I am a funded PhD student in the U.K working on a practise based project within the field of design, although it is at heart a multidisciplinary project.
I am currently 2.5 years in to my 3.5 year programme (4 years if I take an optional 6 month placement)
To put it bluntly I am behind on my degree and I am coming up to my 2nd annual progression which is now 5/6 months over due and is my second and final attempt at submission. I’ve just had to apply for an extra 2 months.
My primary supervisor is now leaving the university and our relationship has broken down. I was told by my supervisor bluntly that “I will not get a PhD out of this” amongst other extremely negative things. They are the person who wrote the project brief to which I originally applied. They are a well respected individual in their field however and their opinion is a valid one but it was definitely coming from a place of anger.
I started just before the pandemic and then had a really difficult time with my mental health. I come from a world outside of academia and although I have an undergraduate bachelors I was co running a start up which gained me access to the degree without a masters. Trying to steer and save the company is partly what led to my mental breakdown and this current mess.
Currently I do not have any published papers or journal articles.
After the relationship broke down with my primary supervisor and he wasn’t willing to assist I took my issues to outside members of the faculty to seek assistance. They have been extremely supportive and encouraging.
The university has assigned my secondary supervisor to work with me for the next few months and also a replacement supervisor should I pass my AP2. My second supervisor has told me that it is going to be an uphill battle for the remainder of the project.
My options are thusly.

Plough on and try to gain as much help during the process as possible to submit on time and then gain my PhD

Drop to part time study after my resubmission and then extend the timeline to submit for as long as possible to get things back on track. I would have to gain additional employment to support myself and my family during this time

Immediately seek alternative employment options with 2 months of funding to cover me during this period

Short to medium term I am not really seeking a career in a academia, especially after this experience, but would like it as a fallback for later life to move into lecturing or teaching. The degree would also help me gain employment in my field.
Has anyone experienced a situation like this, or had experience of a student having been in a similar situation to this and successfully completing?

I sympathise with your situation, but what is the exact question you want answering? Note that Stack Exchange sites are specifically designed for Q&A rather than general or personal advice (Reddit can be a good place for that).

We are just random persons on the internet. We don't know you. What could we offer you? Like @astronat I too sympathise with your situation, but I don't know what else to say.

As already outlined in a comment, this community likes to answer straight questions instead of giving general advise, but nevertheless I will try to provide some, assuming what you seek is an independent evaluation of your situation.
Facing this tough situation, I would suggest to focus on your motives behind getting a PhD in the first place. As you write you are aiming for an "academic career as a fallback", I can only say this is very unrealistic. An Academic career is usually only possible when you are dedicated and willing to give 100%. People usually see industry jobs as the fallback. I can only speculate for your particular situation because I don't know your field of research, but if this is your main motive, then staying in your PhD position might not be the best choice for you. And doing a PhD in part-time within 4 yours is already quite an optimistic aim.
If getting a PhD for later employment outside of academia is your main motivation, then this is of course a different story.
A broken relationship with a supervisor is always bad and independently of the reason for it to happen it is usually the student who suffers more from it.
Reading that you are well behind your initial work schedule might have something to do with your supervisor's attitude towards you.
On the other hand, statements like “You will not get a PhD out of this” are highly unprofessional and should never be made by a higher-up. So I speculate that your progress might also be due to bad supervision. Reading that other faculty members are very supportive towards you sounds like there is more to the story than your supervisor's opinion - and it sounds encouraging I would say.
It seems there is no reason to not try and pass the AP2, but keep in mind a PhD is not something that people do easily on the side. If you cannot raise the effort to wholeheartedly work on your PhD project then you are wasting your and your (new) supervisor's time.
As a side note: Minor and major setbacks happen for many, many PhD students. Things might not be as bad as you experience them. You already did the first and most important step and contacted other members of the university. Listen to them and trust their judgement on your individual case. If they encourage you to keep working on your PhD, do it.

Among the alternatives you suggest, I am going to say go with

Plough on and try to gain as much help during the process as possible to submit on time and then gain my PhD

You are in a bad situation, but there's a silver lining to it. I remember from my time as a PhD student, that a lot of time was spent waiting for others: collaborators to review papers, appointments to get trained in equipment in techniques, my committee to find dates where they could all meet at the same time (this was pre-Zoom times), etc. Everybody kept finding things I could do, revisions I could make, etc. since the deadline for finishing was so far away. And everybody kept delaying, delaying, delaying. I then developed the strategy of making artificial deadlines, e.g. "I need your revisions to my thesis chapter before date X, because of Y" (Y being out of my control, except for the fact that I added Y because it provided a deadline.) It worked.
Since you have real deadlines ahead of you, you can use this fact to motivate others to really help you, as opposed to just offering verbal support. For example, your interim advisor can then become your new advisor and give you a project they know will get you out quickly. That is, a quick project that goes just above the minimum acceptable threshold for what is an acceptable thesis. I know of two grad students who finished in about 4 months after switching labs, following this strategy. Since you are already thinking of leaving academia after the PhD, it won't matter that your project wasn't great.
Do not discount too much the idea of getting a job outside of academia. Graduate students waste a lot of time, and getting a job will limit the amount of time you have to do research, with the positive effect that you eliminate procrastination. Of course, ideally you would have lots of time, and not waste any of it. But with good time management, getting a part-time job can work well.