Talk:Predatory publishing/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

criticism missing

Hi!
I'm missing critical information on beall's list. see e.g. [1], [2], [3] or [4].
Of cource, those websites are not the best or most reputable references. But it seems pretty obvious that beall's list is very controversial. -- seth (talk) 10:19, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Please be aware that Beall is a living person; refs about what a person does and about a person are somewhat different, but these cross the line and are are blogs -- they fail BLP by a very, very wide margin. Do not post more links like there. If you have reliable sources discussing controversy over the list please feel free to post them for discussion. Jytdog (talk) 19:56, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

The Wikipedia page on the subject lists the deceptive practices of the predators which I endorse and for two reasons. First each is provided with authentic documentation. Second most of these are in my personal experience stated as follows.

    . Predatory journals usually start with an e-mail message inviting an academic to submit a paper for their forthcoming issue introducing the journal and its editor. The journal is usually part of a group of journal an organization publishes. For example, an International Journal with open access wrote to me that the publication is interdisciplinary, is peer reviewed and published monthly. It is dedicated to increasing the depth of research across disciplines with the ultimate aim of improving current research. It gave a list of the materials welcomed for publication and the facilities provided to the contributors. The managing editor of another journal wrote that he happened to read in a journal such and such an article of mine and was impressed by its quality, wanted to include my name in the reviewers’ list, requesting finally to send an unpublished paper for the forthcoming issue of the journal. In a two other cases, the journal editor wrote that he had read that title as an MPRA paper and sought my permission to publish it in their journal.
     In cases where contribution was sought, a within a week review result was promised. In one case I allowed the publication. A formatted copy of the paper was sent to me for proof reading that I did and returned the paper to the journal. They thanked me asked to remit $300 as publication fee. I told them that the journal had commissioned the article and there was no prior disclosure about the charge. The demand was not justified; the article may be dropped. They published it. After that incident, whenever I received any such request, I wrote back that I do not pay for publishing as a matter of principle. I was surprised to find that some were willing to and did publish free of charge. There is cut throat competition among the fast multiplying predators. Presumably, such journals are not getting enough paid work to fill space and survive. They are offering concessional rates to publish students’ research work.

ZUBAIR HASAN Professor Emeritus INCEIF — Preceding unsigned comment added by 42.111.22.138 (talk) 04:36, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

More sources

I've posted these to Jimbo's page as well. Some of them are already used in this article. These also cover predatory conferences.

A study reported in the Japan Times[5] by James McCrostie looks at fake conferences in Japan. McCrostie discusses submitting fake papers generated by SCIgen to fake conferences all of which were accepted. It also discusses both the cost to attendees for these conferences (which are cheap to run) and the damage that can be done to reputations.

The New York Times published an article last month[6] called "Many Academics Are Eager to Publish in Worthless Journals". It also discusses aspects of predatory journals such as using names almost identical to prestigious ones, the fact that many or most don't have paper publications or do serious reviews, etc. And the fact that publishing in them is a way for academics to get promoted. "Many faculty members — especially at schools where the teaching load is heavy and resources few — have become eager participants in what experts call academic fraud that wastes taxpayer money, chips away at scientific credibility, and muddies important research." Senior academics publish in them -- 200 McGill University professsors, for instance.[7]

They also run fake conferences where by paying a hefty fee an academic can be listed as a presenter even if they don't attend. It's also easy to become an editor of a fake journal. A fictional academic with ludicrous credentials applied to 360 open-access journals asking to become an editor, with 48 accepting her, 4 making her editor-in-chief.[8][9] See also this article.

There are now more predatory conferences than scholarly ones.[10] Many of these are run by Waset: "research into Waset, which is registered in the United Arab Emirates, shows that it will hold some 183 events in 2018, although these will cover almost 60,000 individual “conferences” – averaging 320 at each event. Conferences are scheduled almost every day up until the end of 2030." These take place in small rooms with multiple conferences held in each room but few attendees, although many will have paid a large sum to attend.

An article last month in Die Zeit[11] says the ownership of WASET is unknown, and "website of Waset does not give an address anywhere. Interested parties can only fill out an anonymous form or send an SMS - with the United Arab Emirates dialing code." "The purpose of a waset conference is to extend the CV by a conference as well as a contribution in a scientific journal. Because every lecture is published in an online publication, which is also published by Waset. Over 40,000 articles are said to have come together since 1999, according to the website."

There are more sources of course, I could go on and on. And warnings from academics.[12][13][14][15]

This raises serious issues from Wikipedia. The obvious one is that it is now very difficult for most editors to distinguish between reputable journals and predatory ones, especially when the contributor seems "normal". My other issue is whether Wikipedia or the WMF has a role to play in the fight against these. Maybe we don't, I'd like to think there is something we can do. We do have Predatory open access publishing which oddly doesn't linketo Predatory conference. Perhaps one of the relevant wikiprojects should set up a working party to improve all the related articles?

The DeSmogBlog ran an article about them a few months ago in relation to a climate conference.[16] PubMed has banned OMICS, but not very successfully."PubMed may be consciously or unwittingly acting as a facilitator of predatory or unscrupulous publishing." New owner of two Canadian medical journals is publishing fake research for cash, and pretending it's genuine "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Predatory Publishing but Were Afraid to Ask" "Is predatory scientific publishing “becoming an organized industry”?" Doug Weller talk 14:20, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Well having articles about predatory journals that explain they are predatory with references I think is good.

We do need a list of predatory publications ourselves to keep these publications out of Wikipedia. I am not sure how much of this we can do by bot? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:01, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Beall's reason for discontinuing lists stated clearly in NIH article

A source cited in the article, nature.com, stated that Beall would not state his reason for discontinuing his list of predatory publishers. Following is a link to the Nature article, also found at footnote 5 in the Wikipedia article: <ref:https://www.nature.com/news/controversial-website-that-lists-predatory-publishers-shuts-down-1.21328>

However, contrary to that assertion, Beall stated clearly his reason in an article published by the National Institutes of Health: "In January 2017, facing intense pressure from my employer, the University of Colorado Denver, and fearing for my job, I shut down the blog and removed all its content from the blog platform." Here is a link to the NIH article: <ref:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5493177/> Gary Henscheid (talk) 04:05, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Already in article: "In January 2017, Beall shut down his blog and removed all its content, citing pressure from his employer." Banedon (talk) 05:19, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Banedon, indeed it is already in the article, thanks. Shouldn't the following be moved to the last paragraph of the Beall's List section, before or after the sentence you pointed out? "A demand by Frontiers Media to open a misconduct case against Beall was reported as the reason Beall closed the list. An investigation by the university was closed with no findings."[6][7] It seems confusing to have the alleged reason mentioned in the first section and Beall's stated reason so far apart. Gary Henscheid (talk) 13:02, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Alternatively, Beall's stated reason for discontinuing his list could be moved to the first paragraph. Considering the relative importance of the matter, perhaps it would be better there, together with the other reasons speculated about; in my opinion, it is misleading for the two accounts to be listed separately and so far apart. Gary Henscheid (talk) 14:33, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Nature article

Mar 16 2018

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-02921-2

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:54, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

• Interesting! The list they talk about is at https://beallslist.weebly.com/. We used Beall as a reliable source, but that was based on him being a reputed professional academic librarian. Not sure we can do the same with this list. Any other opinions? --Randykitty (talk) 09:54, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:List of open access projects which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 02:01, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

New lead change

@Abderitestatos: various sources, including one in the lead, do discuss the fraud implications, which have now been removed. A number of those journals chose specific names designed to trick people into confusing them with a respectable journal (with almost the same name). The Kolata source then says that some are increasingly aware, not that it's a settled issue. I have therefore reverted. —PaleoNeonate – 02:28, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Adding: there are also serious implications of publishing in such journals: projects like Wikipedia for instance must generally avoid them. —PaleoNeonate – 02:32, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for reverting the inappropriate edit. Johnuniq (talk) 03:02, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

While a certain bevahiour may be judged as “fraudulent” or “exploitative”, these expressions are not suitable for a neutral description; stating “that academics are tricked into publishing” does fully comprise the essential meaning of “fraudulent”, is even more precise than the latter word, but without judging the behaviour described; also, in the current introduction, the position of the word “fraudulent” leaves unclear who is affected by the “fraud”, as it is part of a statement questionning the unawareness of the submitting academics. Similarly, “failure to meet generally accepted standards” is more precise and more neutral than “poor quality”, and “acknowledged” is more obviously expressing the act of being judged than the term “legitimate”, that quite literally means ‘according to law’.

Furthermore, I tried to mend some grammatical issues: Is it really customary to say that an author is “publishing with a journal”, or that someone is “charging fees to authors”, instead of “publishing in a journal” and “charging authors with fees”? --Abderitestatos (talk) 16:37, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

NPOV does not mean pretending that malfeasance is merely substandard business practice. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:40, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

• Hear! Hear! --Randykitty (talk) 17:15, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

The current definition at the beginning of the article reads:

“Predatory open-access publishing is an exploitative open-access academic publishing business model that involves charging publication fees to authors without providing the editorial and publishing services associated with legitimate journals (open access or not).”

So there is no mention of “malfeasance” anyway; and there seems to be no judicial literature cited in the article that would support such a claim. --Abderitestatos (talk) 19:05, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

I am more sympathetic to your edit than the others who have weighed in (in particular, I think some parts of it were definite improvements), but this question about the meaning of the word "legitimate" is a total red herring. Take your favorite dictionary (e.g.) and you will see multiple definitions of the word, including the sense "conforming to recognized principles or accepted rules and standards" (usage example: "a legitimate advertising expenditure") or similar. This is the sense in which the word is being used, correctly, in the current lead. --JBL (talk) 19:16, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

But that is a secondary meaning, with the sense of “rightfulness” still heavily resounding; “journals acknowledged as legitimate” would be as impartial as my version, but longer, and more ponderous in my opinion. --Abderitestatos (talk) 22:50, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

It is not a secondary meaning (see [17] for an explanation of how senses are ordered in M-W), and framing your argument around this least-reasonable point is not going to go anywhere. --JBL (talk) 23:14, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

So I shall try to make my point more clear: “Legitimate” bears a rather strong connotation of “how things should be”, and thus implies a moral judgment; and one prerequisite for describing a phenomenon from a neutral point of view is to avoid presenting moral judgments as facts, and that is what I tried to do by replacing “legitimate” with “acknowledged”, and by removing “exploitative” and “fraudulent” altogether, the latter two being to some extent redundant anyway. --Abderitestatos (talk) 23:54, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

The WP:LEAD (the part above the table of contents) summarizes well-sourced content in the body (the part below the table of contents). The lead is not a mini-essay where editors give their own opinions. The edit was rightly reverted. Jytdog (talk) 17:48, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

I agree. I've read the arguments Abderitestatos is making, and it's clear they are not gaining traction -- nor should they. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 00:01, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

400,000 scientists published in predatory journals?

See [18] Doug Weller talk 19:07, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

It's refreshing to see American reporting that covers non-American press.

I am not surprised though. When I was in college, university professors (at least in my physics dept) would try to find journals that fit a particular niche for the paper being submitted. But back then everything was still in print and predatory journals were rare to nonexistent, as far as I know. There were some journals that looked good but failed to gain traction and are no longer published (Chaos comes to mind, that one accepted my paper after peer review that required my responses, and I was proud of it, but it's no longer published).

I suspect something similar still happens today: researchers look for journals that fit a niche, and may be fooled by a veneer of legitimacy. The pressure to publish often overrides any other concern. The problem won't be solved until research institutions start actively curating blacklists of journals they don't want their name to appear in.

The ironic thing is, some of these predatory journals actually have good, citable papers in them, submitted by scientists who worked in good faith. ~Anachronist (talk) 21:49, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Absolutely. —PaleoNeonate – 02:25, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Criteria

In order to make the article more reader friendly, I propose we summarize (and link out to) different criteria for predatory publishing instead of listing them point by point. Lists like this risk promoting outdated criteria as truly predatory publishers (like OMICS) regularly shift their practices in order to pass as respected publishers. Megs (talk) 16:14, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Name

Wouldn't predatory journals or Predatory publishing be simpler and more correct? Are all predatory journals open-accesss, and even if so, is this a clarification we have to make in the article title per WP:PRECISION? Predatory journals and predatory publishing redirect here already. PS. Ping User:DGG, User:Randykitty, because let's face it probably few people will reply here... (RfC? Or just RM?). PPS. Polish government recently defined 'predatory journals' ([19]), and it calls them that, without even discussion open access in name or text. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:52, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

If you have the article located at predatory journal, you exclude predatory publishers. You might argue publishing can still be predatory publishing when it's closed access, but usually that's understood to be vanity press/publishing rather than predatory publishing, since there's no money to be extracted from authors in a subscription model, and there's just too little money to be had from readers for that business model to be viable. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:01, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

I agree that "predatory publishing" would be more general. However, in practice, we only find predatory publishing in the context of OA. As Headbomb says, producing a crappy subscription journal is not a workable business model, as libraries (and individuals) would not subescribe to it. There have been fake print journals, but those cases have been extremely rare. Offhand, I only know of six (see Australasian Journal of Bone & Joint Medicine) and in that case more likely than not the authors were paid as opposed to ripped off... I don't remember ever having heard the expression "predatory publishing" (or "predatory journal") without OA being involved. I guess what I'm saying is that the current title is exact and a more general title would be misleading as it would suggest that predatory tactics can also be found in subscription journals. As for vanity presses, they are generally quite honest about what they do (you pay, they publish), without promising expert peer review, indexing in reputable databases, etc. In that sense, I would not mention them in one breath with predatory publishers, who most definitely are not honest about what they do. --Randykitty (talk) 15:26, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

I support changing the title to Predatory publishing. It is not only more accurate and concise, it is the term used in the scholarly literature and media coverage of the topic. Megs (talk) 20:09, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

• I'm not keen, per Headbomb and Randykitty. If we switch to Predatory publishing, we'd need a section or paragraph to explain that OA is the dominant publishing model of predatory publishers. Banedon (talk) 22:54, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

I understand. However, Predatory publishing is the most precise and widely used term. For what it's worth, a quick google search yields 5 times the results for "predatory publishing" than it does for "predatory open-access publishing." The divide is even wider in Google Scholar. Also, I think it'd be incredibly helpful for readers if we create a new section that explains how some OA journals charge article processing charges, and this provided the incentive for predatory practices. Megs (talk) 15:29, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Pinging DGG and Bluerasberry in case they have any thoughts on the matter. Megs (talk) 15:59, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Disagree here, mostly because losing the open access qualifier implies that there's closed access predatory publishing, when in fact, this is near exclusive to open access publishing. I too have never seen the term applied to scam/fraud journals of the Australasian Journal of Bone & Joint Medicine type. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:21, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

• Support "predatory publishing". The article can always state that open access is the dominant model for predatory publishers. Including "open access" in the title seems redundant, and possibly would exclude non-open-access predatory publishing that arises in the future (I dimly recall reading about an ebook publisher that would fit the description of non-OA predatory). ~Anachronist (talk) 18:41, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

How would a non-OA predatory publisher even work? Where would they get revenue from? Presumably there are only two sources, the authors and the readers. Since the author isn't paying it's not OA, and if the content is poor nobody would pay to read it either, in which case the publisher can't make money. Banedon (talk) 01:09, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

"Where would subscription predatory publishers get revenue from?" Either from authors in the form of dubious 'page fees' or 'submission fees', or simply from libraries and library consortia paying to subscribe to journals they think might be useful. Metacladistics (talk) 21:36, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:15, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

• This is literally the very first time ever that I see the term "predatory publishing" applied to journal bundling and even less so to page charges (which in my experience are mainly charged by scientific societies and never are excorbitant). --Randykitty (talk) 09:03, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

• Prefer Predatory publishing. "Open access" is a concept which applies to journals. The subject of this article is more broad than only journals, and is about an industry sector which includes conferences, dataset curation, community organizing, advertising, social network mapping, library cataloging, and supporting administrative functions which make all this possible. The actual open access journals are obvious as media records of this sector but the enterprise of all of this is better described as "publishing" rather the genre of literature which comes out of that business sector. If we had enough content then there might be two articles - "predatory publishing" and "predatory open access journals", but if we only have one article, I think "predatory publishing" is the better fit for what is happening here. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:48, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
• Predatory publishing in my opinion seems the best term. It needs redirects from the othe possibilities, and an explanation alongthe lines that Megs suggests. OA journals (and the conferences sometimes linked to them) is the current model. There have been earlier publishing practices that might now be called predatory publishing, but the phrase was not available at the time. Vanity book publishing , or fake biographical dictionaries are some related examples. DGG ( talk ) 19:04, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Possible additional sections

The current scope of the article I think misses a few things. E.g. It focuses on the sting operations rather than the causes and effects of predatory publishing. What do people think of the idea of the structure:

• History
• Defining characteristics
• Uptake
  • Reasons why journals behave predatorially
  • Reasons why authors submit to predatory journals
• Effects
  • Publication of erroneous works
  • Acceptance of fake 'sting' articles, and editors
  • Effect on perception of OA
• Response
  • Blacklists (e.g. Beall's / predatoryjournals.com)
  • Whitelists (e.g. DOAJ / JCR / Campbell)
  • lawsuits

What do people think? T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 07:52, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

The main difference between this proposal and the existing structure is the "Uptake" and "Effects" sections, and I'm not sure that such sections are a good idea. I think the "effects" are more naturally described integrated into the "Characteristics" section because each characteristic has its own effect. "Uptake" is a word that doesn't make much sense to me in the context of predatory publishing, and I imagine that the subsections on "reasons why people behave as they do" could easily confront the problem of finding sufficient evidence to avoid imputing reasons to people. I would like to see in more detail what the content of such a section would be! In summary, I'm not sure that the "Uptake" and "Effects" sections are a good idea, and the rest of the structure is mostly the same as the existing structure. Biogeographist (talk) 12:06, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:List of open-access projects which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 13:46, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Passing feedback

I stumbled onto this article and have the following feedback. The lead section needs a total re-write. I read it three times and still didn't understand what predatory publishing was. Then I googled the subject and found this source from Iowa State University. I have no idea if it's reliable, but at least it was comprehensible.

The lead section has several specific problems. The first is that the sentences are just too convoluted for an ordinary reader to understand. The second is that it doesn't explain who is being predated on, or how. The third is that it focuses way too much on Beall's List without explaining how or why Beall's List is so important that it takes up 4 out of 7 sentences in the lead. R2 (bleep) 18:14, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 24 April 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved. There is a consensus for the page to be moved. Participants in support have cited the redundancy of including "open-access" in the title and common usage. Opposition has pointed out the paucity of non-OA predatory publishing and the need for disambiguation. Weighing policies and the number of proponents, there is a consensus for a move. (closed by non-admin page mover) qedk (t 桜 c) 13:49, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

---

Predatory open-access publishing → Predatory publishing – Per discussion above, we have an emerging consensus to move, or at least, to vote on this. Quick summary of my rationale - shorter name, not necessary to mention open access in title. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:21, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Pinging editors who participated in discussion above: @Headbomb, Randykitty, Megs, Banedon, Anachronist, DGG, and Bluerasberry:

• Oppose, per above otherwise it implies there's non-open access predatory publishing. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:32, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
• Not keen per above. I'm relatively ambivalent though. If we move this to "Predatory Publishing", then I would favor a section explaining why predatory publishing is almost always OA; on the other hand actually finding sources for that would be hard. Banedon (talk) 02:52, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose, per above Don't know of a single example of a journal ripping off authors that is not OA. Predatory publishing simply didn't exist before we had OA. --Randykitty (talk) 08:40, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

@Randykitty: what would you call all those pay-for-play journals that approach presentors of conferences and tell them "if you pay x amount of money, your crappy conference paper will be published in a journal with no reputation and no scholarly editorial board"? Sadads (talk) 07:23, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

• Support per those who participated in #Name above and per WP:CONCISE. I don't see the logic behind the opposition above. "Predatory open-access publishing" still implies all kinds of open-access publishing, but in this case it's about academic publishing. The kind of publishing should be identified by the opening sentence, as has been the case already. Nardog (talk) 13:33, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
• Support per above. The term in common usage and the scholarly literature is predatory publishing. Megs (talk) 18:18, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
• Support: I did not participate in the discussion above, but I will add supporting evidence for what was already mentioned above: Open-access journals are not the only business model in predatory publishing; see, e.g., the section "Rogue book publishers" in Eriksson, Stefan; Helgesson, Gert (June 2017). "The false academy: predatory publishing in science and bioethics". Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy. 20 (2): 163–170 [167]. doi:10.1007/s11019-016-9740-3. PMC 5487745. PMID 27718131. They press a few dozen copies that cost maybe 500 euros each. The idea seems to be that the editor of the book, a researcher craving more academic merits, gets a nice item to add to the publication list, while the publisher draws money from selling a few mandatory library copies. Ultimately the public pays the salaries of these questionable publishers, while those sections of the public truly in need of good edited collections (such as scholars from low and middle income countries who can't afford access to many journals) stand to benefit nothing. Biogeographist (talk) 19:08, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

• Comment Yes, there are predatory book publishers. e-Books that are OA. I doubt that publishers like those you describe above sell any library copies at all if they are so crappy. It's for the same reason why there are no predatory subscription journals. I'm pinging Jeffrey Beall, as few people have thought as much over this issue as him. --Randykitty (talk) 19:17, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

@Randykitty: The publisher that was mentioned as an example in the article that I cited above appears to move a lot of merchandise (or at least enough to stay in business), as can be verified by searching by publisher in the FirstSearch interface to WorldCat for the name of the publisher or its four imprints. Judging by the WorldCat search results, it appears that the publisher not only sells printed books to libraries, but also sells ebooks and electronic journals via its website, and also sells its books to ebook database providers such as EBSCOhost and ProQuest, to which libraries subscribe. The publishing ecosystem is complex, so there are multiple ways to exploit it. Biogeographist (talk) 19:41, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't think that "predatory publishing" is synonymous with "low quality publishing". --Randykitty (talk) 19:49, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Your distinction between "predatory publishing" and "low-quality publishing" is not without merit, but isn't there some overlap or gradient between the two, which is why the practices I mentioned above were included in the cited article on predatory publishing? The next section of the article, titled "Traditional publishing houses turning to the dark side?" suggests that "practices common among predatory publishers are becoming increasingly common also among traditional publishers"—another example of overlap or gradient between categories. As the quote in Predatory publishing § Eriksson and Helgesson's 25 criteria says: "but the more points on the list that apply to the journal [or publisher] at hand, the more sceptical you should be." Biogeographist (talk) 20:18, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

• support for the reasons I stated in the section above this one. Some of the opposition says that all predatory publishing is open access; this is not correct. There is predatory behavior everywhere. For the "predatory publishing" described in this article, the common characteristic is the article processing charge, which is more often a characteristic of open access journals. Not all open access journals charge authors to publish; not all closed access journals publish without a charge on the author side. Defining characteristics of predatory journals are deceit about the quality of the review process, distribution and popularity of the journal, and archiving practices. The financial model of the journal is not a defining characteristic of being predatory. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:51, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

"This is not correct" . Predatory publishing is something that is exclusively used to describe an open access practice, and it is predatory because of its financial model. There are no closed access publishers described as a predatory. You can certainly make the case that vanity publishing is a predatory practice, but no reliable source has made that case. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:09, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Vanity publishing is not predatory at all in my eyes. Vanity publishers are quite open and honest about what they do: you pay us, we publish your stuff. For some extra money they'll help you market your work. Nothing deceptive or dishonest about that. At no point do they claim to edit your writings or to evaluate it. Predatory publishers are fundamentally dishonest, telling authors and readers that they have stringent quality controls when that is not the case, of claiming to have well-known scientists on their boards when that is false, etc. --Randykitty (talk) 21:43, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

There can be a difference between a legitimate vanity press and one engaged in "predatory" behavior, and that is acknowledged at least somewhat in the vanity press article. A vanity press may simply be a company that is hired by an author to print (and perhaps distribute) copies of their material, with no further expectations. However, it may also be the case that a vanity press will present themselves differently to an author, with promises of prestige, promotional activity, exposure, and readership that can be misleadingly optimistic or simply outright fraudulent. Such practices have likely existed for as long as publishing has been a business, and can be legitimately called "predatory". But I do believe that the term "predatory publishing" was not invented by Beal to describe that. It was invented as a characterization of open-access publishers that exhibit such behavior. —BarrelProof (talk) 00:06, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

@Headbomb: There are various concepts here. Currently this article describes the "predatory publishing" which happens with author-side fees. "Predatory publishing" with library-side fees typically happens in the form of product bundling and publishers' promotion of low quality paid journals in their bundles. I expect you are familiar with this controversy. EXCLUSION OR EFFICIENT PRICING? (2004) applies the term "predatory" to the practice of bundling journals. In other sources commentators call established publishers "predatory" for their high profit margins. How do you feel about either "low quality publishing" or "deceptive publishing", like this article recommends?

• Eriksson, Stefan; Helgesson, Gert (April 2018). "Time to stop talking about 'predatory journals'". Learned Publishing. 31 (2): 181–183. doi:10.1002/leap.1135.

Blue Rasberry (talk) 22:12, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Bundling, high profit margins, etc, is unrelated to predatory publishing. Check the characteristics of predatory publishing - which one does it match? It's a separate issue and is irrelevant for predatory publishing. Banedon (talk) 23:48, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm with Banedon here. Perhaps someone has once or twice said that bundling is a "predatory" practice, but this is not what most people would think of when they hear the term "predatory publishing". Same with the profit margins (and, although irrelevant for this discussion, it's perhaps sobering to see that OA publisher Hindawi has a much higher profit margin than any of the established large subscription publishers...) --Randykitty (talk) 07:15, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

@Randykitty and Banedon: I hope you both agree that the media around this topic is heavily influenced by a marketing campaign of propaganda. Most people think what the side with the $billions put in their outreach campaign, but WP:NPOV policy offers inclusion to any position which transcends the fringe even if it is minority. Publishers invest heavily in calling their open access marketplace competition "predatory". Plenty of community-based advocates of open access in opposition to the risk-free 30% profit margins of traditional scholarly publishing have described the business establishment of an exclusionary publishing environment as "predatory" and every other negative word. The word "predatory" does in fact exist on both sides, but beyond that, so do horrible practices with the author-side charge and library-side charge marketplaces.

Hindawi is 40 people; their profit margin is irrelevant. Why frame them as relatable to a $10 billion business sector? I found the article you must have read - "Hindawi’s Profit Margin is Higher than Elsevier’s". Of course the economics of small business is different from running a pseudo-governmental global coalition of corporations. There must be a misunderstanding here. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:07, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Hindawi also operates on a pay-to-publish model, which combines with non-existent or poor peer-reviewed processes, in the hallmark of predatory open access publishing. Take for example Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine which publishes mostly rubbish, and is clearly engaging in pay-to-publish practices "In 2010, EBCAM published 76 papers, while these figures increased to 546, 880 and 1327 during the following three years.". While no RS has called EBCAM a predatory journal (Beall did call them that a while back, but he changed his mind before his list was taken done), they clearly are indistinguishable from one, and Hindawi has no interest in shutting down a cash cow like EBCAM. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:17, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

I believe your characterization to be unfair. *Publishers* didn't invest into calling their OA competition "predatory"; that term was created by Jeffrey Beall. Note that efforts to continue Beall's list aren't usually led by traditional publishers. Further, most traditional publishers are happy to embrace OA. Just check how many of the biggest publishers are unwilling to offer OA; you probably won't find any. In fact from the publisher's point of view OA is great because it's guaranteed revenue and you don't have to worry about convincing people that your content is good enough to pay a subscription fee for. If anything I think the propaganda's going the wrong way; it's leading to widespread misconceptions about what predatory publishing actually is. Banedon (talk) 02:25, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose. The articletopic is not the only form of "predatory publishing". 50.248.234.77 (talk) 12:14, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. Legitimate commercial publishers have certainly misbehaved, but their misbehavior is of a very different nature; it does the readers no service to lump these things together. I suspect some of the pressure for this move is from predatory open-access publishers who wish to shift the negative attention in this article away from them and towards other people. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:00, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
• Not keen: As stated in the Vanity press article, "Vanity presses may engage in deceptive practices or costly services with limited recourse available to the writer." So it is true that non-OA publishers can exhibit "predatory" behavior. However, I think this article is about the open-access phenomenon. —BarrelProof (talk) 13:41, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

• I'm confused about the opposition here. Since when does Wikipedia establish the definition of a term?? The scholarly literature and the media describe this phenomena as predatory publishing, not predatory open-access publishing. The article should be moved, and the text of the article can address how APCs (one financial model for open access publishers) provide the incentive for the predatory, deceptive behaviors. Megs (talk) 18:06, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
  • It's not strong opposition – just skepticism. It's just that I'm not sure it is desirable to broaden the scope of the article beyond OA publishing. I suspect that other articles (such as Vanity Press) cover the non-OA publishing cases already, and the OA movement has helped create a somewhat new phenomenon. —BarrelProof (talk) 19:15, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

• Fair! APCs have certainly provided the incentive for predatory practices, but that does not apply to the OA movement as whole. There are many cases in which specialists in this area describe subscription publishers as predatory. Megs (talk) 19:36, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

• Support "predatory publishing". I agree that including "open access" in the title seems redundant, and possibly would exclude non-open-access predatory publishing that occurs. There is room for this article to expand to include other pay for play style publishing. Librarian ccg (talk) 18:56, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
• Support "predatory publishing" is the term that is used to describe this practice within scholarly communications literature and inclusion of "open-access" conflates publisher practices with publication access policies. Napplicable (talk) 19:09, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
• Question Could somebody pleaase tell me what practice is called reliably and consistently "predatory" while not being OA? --Randykitty (talk) 19:16, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

• Are we here to create the definition for a practice or to represent what's in the literature? Megs (talk) 19:26, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

• Invited expert I found this article

Siler, Kyle. "Demarcating Legitimate and Predatory Scientific Publishing: The Influence of Status on Institutional Logic Conflicts". doi:10.31235/osf.io/6r274.

It was published less than a month ago and seems relevant. I invited the author here to comment. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:53, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

• Support "predatory publishing". Subscription-based journals can also (and in the sciences, often do) charge publishing fees. There's also no clear answer in the scholarly communications world as to what constitutes "predatory publishing," with many arguing that there are other predatory practices than just publishing fees that are practiced by subscription-based journals. Certainly there are subscription-based journals that say they are peer reviewed and practice at best poor to little peer review. Schauch (talk) 20:07, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose Yes, there are other forms of predatory publishing that are not based on open access journals; but the article currently does not cover those - and if it did, I expect it would still be dominated by the OA angle to such an extent that it would make sense to spin that off as a standalone. If a wider treatment is desired, it would seem more sensible to start a new, more general article "Predatory publishing", linking to and summarizing this one. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 20:27, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
• Support Some journals that have been labeled "predatory" (rightly or not) do not consider themselves to be "open access" and even request subscriptions. Likewise, as has been discussed above, some subscription journals have very steep publishing fees ... and thus, the incentive, to take shortcuts on peer review. They're seldom labeled "predatory" because the term has been applied inappropriately. Jaireeodell (talk) 20:37, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
• Support "predatory publishing". As I understand it predatory publishing is all about deceptive publishing services, where one party is charged for services such as organizing peer-review which do not occur. This has a long history, it pre-dates the invention of open access. "Anecdotally, a significant proportion of journals on post-Soviet space in 90s were quite happy to publish literally anything as long as author covers the "publication costs". The peer-review was either very light or non-existent (e.g. authors could invite their friends to act as a referee). This was used by some high-rank officials to secure the publications required for their academic degree, which gives a bearer a certain level of prestige even if they never practice science." https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/113928/651 Metacladistics (talk) 20:42, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

• Everyone who is saying 'predatory publishers' are an OA-only thing is flat wrong I'm afraid. If you read sources outside of Europe and North America you'll see that the problem goes well beyond just open access journals. For instance Dr. Arul George Scaria, from the National Law University Delhi said this in an interview with Richard Poynder recently: "First, it is important to recognise that the issue of predatory publishing is not limited to open access journals. There are many closed-access publishers in India who will publish anything for a payment. So, in discussing the issue of predatory publishing we have to understand that this is an issue related to scientific publishing in general." https://poynder.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-oa-interviews-arul-george-scaria.html Metacladistics (talk) 21:09, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
• As pointed out by Randykitty above, that makes such a publisher a vanity press, which existed before predatory publishers became a thing in 2008 (when Beall coined the term). Banedon (talk) 22:52, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

• Support - As per multiple explanations provided above, predatory publishing is not only open access. Spyder212 (talk) 21:19, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Do you have any WP:RS to back this up? Predatory is not simply a synonym for unethical here. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 06:43, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

• Support - The term predatory publishing is problematic enough. Allow the page to have content that covers OA and non-OA content will help de-tangle the predatory practices from the challenges people have with various OA models. I see sufficient evidence (with citations) above that outline non-OA predatory practices. Alperin (talk) 22:26, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
• Support: "Predatory publishing" better reflects usage in scholarly communities. (Quick phrase searches in Google Scholar bear this out, as Megs noted.) Also, "predatory" is a quality of behavior(s), not a name for specific behavior(s), and certainly not a name for specific behavior(s) by OA publishers only. Many publisher behaviors have the quality of being predatory, from Elsevier's misrepresentation of sponsored content to Lambert's efforts to ensnare thesis authors and beyond. Regardless of whether it's readers, authors, or libraries that are the target, it's all predation. --Oalib (talk) 06:07, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Do you have any WP:RS that describes the Elsevier type of misconduct as predatory? Because it's a label that's exclusively applied to OA publishing AFAICT. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 06:42, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

I agree that "predatory" is used almost exclusively in the way Beall used it, for a variety of reasons. However, "predatory" is often used interchangeably with "scam," "fake," "pseudo," and "deceptive." Indeed, the current opening sentence of the article states that predatory publishing is sometimes called "deceptive publishing," citing an OSI report. That report begins by saying that "deceptive publishing" is more commonly known as "predatory publishing" and then goes on to list four categories of deceptive publishing, one of which is "phony journals" of the Elsevier sort. So, according to that report, "predatory" equals "deceptive" and includes Elsevier-type misconduct. --Oalib (talk) 00:41, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

• Support I don't see sufficient arguments not to make this change, and I see good reasons to make it. The current title is much too restrictive. Doug Weller talk 09:10, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
• Support I agree with a lot of the arguments made above in support of the move. The main one, for me, is simply that 'predatory publishing' is the most widely used term to describe the phenomenon. (I don't like the term, but it is very commonly used.) Lawsonstu (talk) 13:30, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
• Support I support the move, in part because I don't think predatory publishing should be solely linked to OA. The APC-based OA publishing business model is the most commonly cited mechanism for predatory publishing. Personally, I prefer a broader interpretation of the word 'predatory' in regards to questionable scholarly and economic behaviors in scientific publishing. The APC-based OA has unique incentives and opportunties for 'predatory' behaviors by scholars and publishers alike. However, I think it would be preferable to include predation via APC-based OA as one of numerous means by which 'predation' can occur in scientific publishing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Silerks (talk • contribs) 15:07, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

What non APC-related , non-OA publishing is deemed predatory by reliable sources? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:18, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Dear Headbomb: here is one exemplar predatory publisher/journal http://www.denovojournal.com/ . The content at the journal is not open access, it is accessible by subscription-only. In 2013, I wrote that this was a predatory subscription access journal http://rossmounce.co.uk/2013/02/20/predatory-online-journals-include-subscription-access-journals/ Independently of my own opinion, I note that another website to which I neither contribute-to nor approve of, also lists 'DeNovo Scientific Publishing' as a predatory publisher: https://predatoryjournals.com/publishers/ The journal has been labelled as having questionable legitimacy in HuffPo here: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/02/19/bigfoot-dna-controversy-science-journal_n_2711676.html and by ZME Science: https://www.zmescience.com/science/bigfoot-dna-evidence-spoof-bad-science-43243/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Metacladistics (talk • contribs) 08:57, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, forgot to sign that last comment Metacladistics (talk) 09:01, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Denovo is also an open access publisher. In their entire lifetime, they have published two issues, one closed which published an article by 'Dr Melba Ketchum', who owns Denovo itself (therefore rather unlikely she paid for publication, this is more a self-vanity press thing), the second open, which is the predatory part of the scam. And that's why it's on Beall's list (StopPredatoryJournals.com is a mirror of Beall's list). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:59, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

And the article in the second issue was authored by... 'Dr Melba Ketchum'. The journal has published two articles in total on fringe science subjects by the owner of the publisher. This is not a journal (predatory or not), it doesn't even have an ISSN. This is simply a fringe-science website and with two published articles in 2013/2014 not worth the electrons that we are wasting talking about it. --Randykitty (talk) 17:17, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

@Randykitty:, actually it does ISSN 2326-2869. Not that it changes anything, it's a self-published outlet from pseudoscientists that want to pretend to do legit research. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:23, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

As they didn't mention it on their website, I assumed they didn't have one. That'll teach me to believe these cranks even for simple details :-)) --Randykitty (talk) 17:27, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

It's mentionned, that's where I found it. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:26, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Even worse... Heap it on... ;-) --Randykitty (talk) 19:45, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

@Headbomb: Where does Denovo Journal claim to be an open access journal? This would seem to be an unevidenced assertion. Unless evidence is given to the contrary, Denovo Journal is clearly a paywalled journal, with optional hybrid as is common practice at most paywalled/subscription journals. It is very apt that in the same sentence Headbomb describes Denovo Journal as a "self-vanity press" and then later in the same sentence refers to the very same journal as "predatory". Perhaps rather than being two entirely seperate phenomena, this excellent sentence by Headbomb reveals the truth that vanity press and predatory publisher are two-sides of the same coin and belong all in the same article including discussion of other predatory publishing synonyms such as 'questionable publishers' and 'trash journals', the latter of which is a popular term for the phenomena in China according to many reliable sources. Metacladistics (talk) 21:19, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

See e.g. [20]. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:24, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

@Headbomb: I read the page you linked me to. On that page it clearly states "DeNovo's default option for manuscript submission is through our online subscription journal". Then it details optional hybridOA if the author desires. Nowhere does the journal claim to be an open access journal and in fact it very clearly claims to be a subscription journal.

@Headbomb: PS Having few articles or issues is also not atypical of predatory publishers, they come in all shapes and sizes e.g. http://geneticresearchjournal.com/ 'Ulutas Genetic Research Journal' which has just one issue containing three articles. Metacladistics (talk) 21:23, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Just to provide further evidence from a reliable independent source about my prior comment on few articles not being atypical; in the Shen & Bjork (2015) longitudinal study of predatory publishing, they acknowledge that "some [predatory] journals have fewer than five articles in all" https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-015-0469-2 Metacladistics (talk) 21:57, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

You really need a better example. A "journal" that published TWO articles in 2013 and 2014, by the owner of the "publisher" on some fringe science subject is a fringe science website masquerading as a journal. This is NOT a "predatory journal", OA or not, nor is it a vanity publisher. Vanity publishing is something very different. THIS is not a journal, nor a publisher. It's a fantasy website by some crank. --Randykitty (talk) 21:25, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

@Randykitty: I do not understand how you can claim Denovo is NOT a predatory publisher when Denovo features on both the modern-day https://predatoryjournals.com/ AND on Beall's defunct list https://beallslist.weebly.com/ . It would seem to me that it IS a subscription publisher AND is commonly described as a predatory publisher by sources and key reference lists such as Beall's. You cannot simply exclude real evidenced examples because they do not fit the narrow definition of predatory publishing you appear to want for this article. Metacladistics (talk) 21:39, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Note that https://predatoryjournals.com/ is a mirror of beall's list. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:37, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

To call https://predatoryjournals.com/ merely "a mirror" of Beall's List is unhelpfully imprecise - the two are not mirror copies of each other. PredatoryJournals.com has active development and thus more titles listed on it, it did indeed incorporate Beall's prior list but it now expands upon it with contributions from a range of unidentified people. PredatoryJournals.com does not have a requirement that the journal or publisher listed is open access. With reference to this discussion, why did they not call it PredatoryOAJournals.com or PredatoryOpenAccessJournals.com, perhaps it is because quite clearly the most common term of reference is 'Predatory Journals' not 'Predatory open access journals' and thus the website rather supports the name change here at Wikipedia too. Metacladistics (talk) 09:37, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Also note that Beall explicitly included only OA journals on his list. --Randykitty (talk) 04:09, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Yes, Beall was well known for not having a neutral point of view with regards to the open access business model, it would not surprise me if he intended to only list predatory journals/publishers with a certain characteristic (OA). Beall's List is now defunct for good reason - it was biased and occasionally zany - he included MDPI and other well known legitimate OA publishers at one point(!). Subsequent more neutral lists such as Cabell's list include both open access AND subscription publishers/journals: "Both open access- and subscription-based journals are included" source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6008990/ Metacladistics (talk) 09:59, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Beall was often critized as non-neutral, but he was by far and a large a pretty neutral authority on the matter, even if opinionated. MDPI and Frontiers and others definitely deserved to be included on his lists. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:01, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

@Metacladistics: Looking at Cabell's list of criteria now, I get the feeling they're working on a rather unorthodox definition of predatory publishing. Granted what is predatory publishing isn't well defined in the first place, but their criteria are suspect. Examples: "The journal has a large editorial board but very few articles are published per year" indicates a journal that's not healthy, but doesn't mean it's predatory (by my understanding of the term). "The Editor publishes research in his own journal" should be superfluous; in fact I'd even say an editor should give his own journal a vote of confidence by publishing in it. "The journal purposefully publishes controversial articles in the interest of boosting citation count" also sounds silly, since that would make Nature predatory ([21]). I think the upshot is, if we accept Cabell's list as a reliable source, then the meaning of "predatory publisher" would have to expand from what it currently is. Banedon (talk) 12:27, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

@Banedon: "if we accept Cabell's list as a reliable source, then the meaning of "predatory publisher" would have to expand from what it currently is" yep, I think that is the crux of the issue here. We either choose 'predatory open access journals' (Beall's one-man-band narrow scoping of the phenomenon), or we choose 'predatory journals' - the world's view of the phenomenon (including Cabell's). Metacladistics (talk) 19:35, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

I contest that that is "the world's view". The world's view is that predatory journals are OA. For every hundred times that "predatory publishing" or "predatory journals" are discussed, it concerns at least 99 times times an OA journal/publisher. Subscription journals are only very exceptionally termed "predatory". As for Cabell, it's paywalled and I have no access. I'd be curious to learn whether they include even a singl subscription publisher/journal and what criteria they would use to term such a publisher "predatory". My bet actually is that they don't even use that term, but just created a database of (very) low-quality journals (and in that case, of course, some subscription journals might fit their criteria). In any case, Cabell has very little influence as very few instituions subscribe to it as yet, AFAIK. --Randykitty (talk) 21:41, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

@Randykitty: It's my feeling too that this isn't the world's view of what predatory publishing is, but Cabell should be more reliable than me. What makes you say very few institutions subscribe to it? Also, while the list itself is paywalled, you can see their criteria here: [22]. Banedon (talk) 22:32, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, that's useful! They obviously cover more than just predatory journals: "deceptive, fraudulent, and/or predatory journals", explicitly distinguishing between predatory and otherwise deceptive or fraudulent (e.g., hijacked journals). --Randykitty (talk) 07:38, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

@Metacladistics: I clicked around Denovo's website and I'm not convinced it is subscription-based. The website does say "DeNovo's default option for manuscript submission is through our online subscription journal", but it doesn't give any details about how to subscribe. The closest is this link which says the price for peer-reviewed subscription access is ... $1000?? That doesn't make sense; subscription access means there should be a duration ($1000 for a year's access, for example). Further the journal has published only two articles, the latest of which was in 2014, and both articles are by the editor of the journal. Whatever they're doing, it's not working; I will certainly not take their existence to indicate that the subscription + predatory business model is viable. I'm inclined to disregard this as an example. Banedon (talk) 23:18, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Content moved over from Open access

I've moved over the #Correlation_between_open_access_and_certain_academic_practices section from the open access page, witten by nemo bis, since I think it fits here better in a #Relationship_to_open_access_publishing section here than it did at its previous location (discussion). It probably still needs a bit of editing for tone and consistency with the rest of the page. There may also be some overlap with existing content. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 06:14, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

There is a lot of synthesis and essay-like issues in the section. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:34, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

"Articles in ‘predatory' journals receive few or no citations", study says

Figured that the connoisseurs of this article may be interested in this article and the study it is about. Notably, apparently the papers they studied there aren't cited on Wikipedia either. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 19:49, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

There are two competing effects going on (at least anecdotally; I have no data) with respect to their citations on Wikipedia. On the one hand, I believe that the tendency for authors to WP:REFSPAM their papers may be stronger for the predatory papers than for others. On the other hand, there has been a concerted effect by some editors to track down and remove citations to these journals from Wikipedia. I guess, judging by this study, the removals are winning the race. There are still plenty of predatory or questionable citations to remove, though: see WP:CITEWATCH. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:19, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

New source from COPE

This new publication from the Committee on Publication Ethics looks like it might be useful for expanding this article. – Joe (talk) 10:00, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Copyright violation?

• @Nemo bis: What's the concern with copyright violation leading to this? Nomoskedasticity (talk) 10:30, 19 September 2020 (UTC)
• @Nemo bis: You'll need to contribute to discussion here and not simply revert. Your concerns are not apparent to me; I'm willing to listen, but not via edit summary. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 13:36, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Sorry, I had not seen your message here. I'll repeat myself: Beall's lists are potentially copyrighted works as they required creative decisions about the compilation of the information and they contain commentary above the threshold of originality. Unlicensed wholesale copies of that work are probably copyright infringement unless they're authorised by some copyright exception. Can you clarify why you think those websites may not be copyright violations? (Note, I said "may"; I know it's not realistic to "prove" they aren't.) Thanks, Nemo 13:48, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
    • Thanks. I'm pretty confident that scholarlyoa.com was Beall's own website. It's not clear to me how his own website (as archived in the external link you've deleted) can be a copyright violation of his own website. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 14:02, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
      • Scholarlyoa was indeed Beall's site. Stoppredatoryjournals is an unmaintained mirror of the site list, and is pretty much a useless duplicate. The one on weebly is an archived version of Beall's original list, with addendum and notes, which has since moved to https://beallslist.net. Stoppredatoryjournals should be removed as pointless, the others can be debated, but for reasons of WP:DUE, rather than of copyright. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:41, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
        • Although the Internet Archive has been sued for copyright infringement before [23], I think the archiving of content no longer present anywhere else on the web (e.g. this) is solidly fair-use. As an aside, it's desperately sad how StopPP became defunct in 2017. For anyone interested in wikidata coverage of predatory publishers: current discussion. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 02:41, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
          • StopPP was never a thing to begin with. They simply copied Beall's list and called it a day. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 03:03, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Relation to Research Industry

I've added a new entry to explain how diversion of resarch funds extends to many other related activities. Paragraph fully referenced to several many verifyable sources. Some hints already given in mentions to publication fees and predatory conference, and the previous section on "Relation to open access publishing". But some folks not convinced. Please help editing.Polilogaritmo (talk) 09:53, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

This article, and Wikipedia generally, is not the place to editorialize. See WP:SYNTH. XOR'easter (talk) 11:55, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Dear @XOR'easter:, it is not my intention to editorialize. My intention is to inform Wikipedia readers interested in Predatory Publishing that there are several other many activities which exploit the limitted research funds. I was however very careful not to qualify them as 'Predatory' as this could imply an opinion. I am expressing the matter of fact that they exist and feed on research funds. I also provide direct verifiable sources. I have never added whether this is good or bad. i.e. There is no opinion. Notice the whole point of this page is to point out that there exist Predatory practices, and some folks are actually deciding which journals are Predators. I never went so far in my edit. See below for further discussion.Polilogaritmo (talk) 18:28, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Indeed, I've explained this several times now. Original synthesis is not allowed on Wikipedia, and this material is not suitable for it. You can submit similar material to a peer-reviewed venue, and then we can include a distilled summary of it in Wikipedia. But Wikipedia is not the place to write original research. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:14, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I disagree. The intention is not to provide opinions, but to explain that there are several services payed by research funds that do not correspond to research activities. These includes fares for 1) mass media and social media dissemniation of results 2) promotion of author's work on social and mass media 3) grant application support and edition. Each of these claims are supported by verifiable sources. e.g. citation to The Guardian article with full details of the high benefits some of these services provide. Notice here that the benefits are removed from the research budget. A little less benefit to private investors would leave a little more money for research. I expect all editors interested in this post share this concern. Please provide references supporting the contrary in the talk page before deleting verifiable claims. I am somewhat surprised about all this fuzz, since the section right above under the name "Relation to Open Access" is written like a personal reflection according to Wikipedia, and it appears to upset anybody. Perhaps the dispute can be remedied by adding the same tag to 'Relation to Research Industry' if you feel its too personal. I dont' quite thing it is personal. But it serves to resolve the dispute and have readers informed about these services before we achieve full consensus. This is the fourth time a revision on this issue is fully deleted in the last few days, so I am quoting here plain text from Dispute resolution for your convenience:Polilogaritmo (talk) 18:28, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Follow the normal protocol

When you find a passage in an article that is biased, inaccurate, or unsourced the best practice is to improve it if you can rather than deleting salvageable text. For example, if an article appears biased, add balancing material or make the wording more neutral. Include citations for any material you add. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Polilogaritmo (talk • contribs)

Being original research, the text is not salvageable. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:09, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Sorry Wikipedia readers, I've let you down. I was seeking to inform about some practices in the Research community which consume part of the Research budget on activities not related to research. In my first edit definitively with some bias to my own personal opinion, then swiftly moved to the bare facts, verifiable sources and no opinions thanks to advice from experienced editors. But I was blocked today for one week. Of course some folks will not be happy that this bit of information be disclosed, and they will fight fiercefouly to avoid it be disclosed (my edits fully removed within one to five minuts each time). Regretably my attempt also lead to the full dissappearence of the section "Relation to Open Access Publishing" by @Nemo bis: in retaliation. Sorry for that. I trust Wikipedia readers arriving at this point will easily get the right conclusion from these bare facts. See "Relation to Open Access" below for further discussion.Polilogaritmo (talk) 09:30, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Relation to Open Access

A tag personal reflection was added to this entry by Headbomb a year ago. It has now been fully deleted by him. It appears as retaliation to my commentary above. Please avoid edit warring and colateral damage on long lived edits. Help editing for improvement instead.Polilogaritmo (talk) 20:14, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

"Fully deleted by him". A laughable claim, given I re-arranged most of that section at various, more relevant, places in the article. I've reported you for edit-warring, since you've reflexively reverted edits you didn't even understand and can't seem to break out of your WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:54, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Please @Headbomb: read the 3RR rule in Edit warring before disturbing Wikipedia's administrators.

I do not quite agree in merging this content into 'History'. The issue that there could be a relation between 'Predatory Publishing' and 'Open Access' is very relevant. It merits its own section and has little to do with 'History'. Another concern is the motivation for making this change right now. It appears you could tolerate your own personal reflection tag for so long and cannot compromise on bare facts added under "Relation to Research Industry". It seems it was merged into the text so that your own tag could not become obvious to readers. These personal reflections alledged by you now appear as perfectly suitable and merged into text, while edits on "Relation to Research Industry" fully removed each time despite its a few lines paragraph with 10 verifiable references.

Still awaiting you to give any argument to my questions by the way. There does not seem to be any intention to compromise. It is not clear to me whether we are peer editors or you have some superior status. It seems edits on this page need your permision. Please clarify.Polilogaritmo (talk) 22:41, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Edits need to be compliant with WP:OR, which you still seem to be failing to even address in your arguments here, and they do not need permission of individual editors but they do need consensus of the other editors of the article. The reverts of your edits by Headbomb, Nomoskedasticity, XOR'easter, and Spyder212 show that you do not have that consensus. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:52, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Please read Wikipedia: No original research before you make OR allegations. Here is some help "The phrase "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist".

1. I make the allegation that some journals pay fees of several thousand dollars. Is that wrong?

2. I make the allegation that Research networks exist which promote author's research in social and mass media for a price. And I add several direct sources of verification.

3. I claim that companys exist which provide Grant proposal editing for a price. And I add several direct sources of verification. Please provide verifiable sources against these claims and avoid deleting verifiable content without any attempt for consensus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Polilogaritmo (talk • contribs) 23:04, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Polilogaritmo, combining citations to make a point that none of them make individually is WP:SYNTHESIS, which is a common form of original research. The article can't suggest that any of the organizations you are naming are inappropriately profiting off research budgets without a citation that explicitly makes that point. MrOllie (talk) 23:36, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I never said its "inappropriate". There are no opinions whatsoever in that text. Just bare allegations linked to direct verifiable sources. Whether the charges I claim are charged are inappropriate or not is of course an interesting debate, but without those fact, the debate cannot take place in the first time. Readers need to know about it before they can decide. Do override any allegations of 'Inappropriateness' if you find them in the text you refuse to accept.Polilogaritmo (talk) 23:46, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

"Whether the charges I claim are inappropriate or not is of course an interesting debate, but without those fact, the debate cannot take place in the first place." Setting up the "debate" is what is inapropriate to begin with. That's synthesis, and is not allowed. Headbomb {t ·c · p · b} 01:13, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I do not debate. I provide the facts required for pelple to debate freely with the bare facts. With no facts, no freedom of speech, my friend.

Polilogaritmo, You're adding to an article about exploitive business models in publishing, the implication is clear. MrOllie (talk) 23:48, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, I take this as acknowledgement that there are no personal opinions on that edit. We need not assume the readers are stupid. Let us provide them the facts, they will work out the correct implications. Definitively they cannot without them. Providing unbiased information for reader to make decisions is what what Wikipedia is about.Polilogaritmo (talk) 00:06, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Polilogaritmo, You can't have it both ways - either your addition is implying that these providers have exploitive business models, or your addition is off-topic for this article and was misplaced. MrOllie (talk) 00:09, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks MrOllie, I appreciate that you are providing arguments. Not always easy in view of other contributions. I do not what to mean either that they are exploitive business models nor that they arent'. That would introduce my own personal bias on what an exploitative model is. We dont what that in Wikipedia. I am providing the information for readers to decide whether making substantial revenues from publications costing several many thousand dollars per paper is meant to help Research, or meant for profit. I whant readers to decide whether paying for promotional services on author's work is meant to help Research, or meant for profit. I whant reader to decide whether paying for a non-scientist to edit Grant proposals for 7000 € is meant to help research or meant for profit. Let them decide. But let them have this piece of information. Wikipedia is all about learned and critical readers with the right facts.Polilogaritmo (talk) 00:22, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

By the way, perhaps you whant to move all this thread into "Relation with Research Industry". I realize our discussion is misplaced. Here it is about the removal of section "Relation to Open access" which folks had been happy to have for one year since it was placed there. And suddenly all folks are unhappy about it.Polilogaritmo (talk) 00:22, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

It would be more accurate to say that it was flagged as problematic for over a year, and then someone decided to do something about it. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:14, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Lead

I'm not too happy with the last two sentence in the first paragraph, "However, criticisms about the label "predatory" have been raised. A lengthy review of the controversy started by Beall appears in The Journal of Academic Librarianship.' I'm not sure why it's there, and of course we try to avoid "however". While I'm here, the bit above "Sorry Wikipedia readers I've let you down" is I think a violation of WP:FORUM.

But I came here because of someone claiming that the "International Journal of Research -GRANTHAALAYAH" is a peer reviewed journal. As I detail at User talk:Doug Weller it's anything but. Should this be raised somewhere? Doug Weller talk 07:18, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

This seems like three topics mashed in one. What exactly are you asking? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 09:03, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, off to hospital for biopsy. Later. Doug Weller talk 09:07, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Possible rewording of the lead.

Maybe remove the rant.

Should the journals in question be mentioned somewhere?

Sorry User:Headbomb I was in a hurry, not just waiting for them to do the biopsy. Doug Weller talk 11:44, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

What in the lead would need rewording? I see no rant anywhere in the article. As for IJRG (or some other journal) being mentionned in the article, what would make those worthy of mention over any other predatory journals? There are literally thousands of them. And there's no rush, so take all the time you need. The article will still be here tomorrow (or in a week). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:50, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

@Headbomb: sorry, I’m still not being clear. The rant is on this page.I quoted a bit, he also said “ Of course some folks will not be happy that this bit of information be disclosed, and they will fight fiercefouly to avoid it be disclosed (my edits fully removed within one to five minuts each time). Regretably my attempt also lead to the full dissappearence of the section "Relation to Open Access Publishing" by @Nemo bis: in retaliation.” Not a huge deal.

The lead say “ The phenomenon of "open access predatory publishers" was first noticed by Jeffrey Beall, when he described "publishers that are ready to publish any article for payment". However, criticisms about the label "predatory" have been raised. A lengthy review of the controversy started by Beall appears in The Journal of Academic Librarianship.” I’m not sure the last two sentences belong and the 4th para deals with the controversy around Beall in any case.

As for the journals, I was just asking if there is a good place in to mention these for discussion and to see if we use them. I’m bored now, flat on my back for the next 3 to 5 hours without getting up. Doug Weller talk 15:40, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Not really any place for discussion concerning specific predatory journals relating to article space. I suppose WT:JOURNALS could be used for that. If you mean detecting their use on Wikipedia, see WP:UPSD and WP:CITEWATCH. If you mean discussing their use on Wikipedia, there's WP:RSN. See also this ongoing discussion). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:03, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Adding a new source?

Teixeira da Silva, Jaime A. et al. 2022. “An Integrated Paradigm Shift to Deal with ‘Predatory Publishing.’” The Journal of Academic Librarianship 48(1): 102481. is a new paper on predatory publishing, and makes a lot of valid points. Should we add it? Thanks. Kenji1987 (talk) 07:11, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Any sources for the git repository version?

There's a git repository fork of Beall's list that seems to have been maintained for about a year (2017/2018) and since then has accumulated merge requests and issues, and is waiting for some volunteers to fork and re-activate it (the most recent commit seems to be this one). Do we have any WP:RS that discuss the list? If not, then are there any objections to including a link to the git repository as an external link? It does include information that extends knowledge of this topic, but very likely does not qualify as a source. Having only a closed-access list and an outdated list is not very useful. Boud (talk) 15:52, 10 June 2022 (UTC)