Talk:Who's Afraid of Peer Review?

Missing word

There seems to be a word missing in According to a on the DOAJ website. According to a what? Spokesman, employee, scientist, chimpanzee? SpinningSpark 21:39, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks! Fixed that. Citizenofdaworld (talk) 22:22, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

banner warnings

This is my first article. I've followed the advice in the 3 warning banners (which were quite helpful). But when should I remove those banners? Should I leave it to a more experienced editor to decide? Citizenofdaworld (talk) 22:25, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, through sometimes this means waiting for years - so it's good to ask, first here and if noone replies, keep asking for review and comments at WP:VP and such. I have reviewed the banners, and replaced them with another one which I find more correct (about insufficient density of references; please ensure each paragraph has a reference). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:33, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

• Are the inline citations up to snuff now? Citizenofdaworld (talk) 22:17, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Yes, excellent work! --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:41, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Name

I am not happy with the "2013 Science sting". Who invented that name? I'd rather suggest using the official article's name, namely Who's Afraid of Peer Review?. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:31, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

• Good idea I didn't like this title much either, but had no good idea for an alternative. --Randykitty (talk) 07:19, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
• I agree. I created the title to be as specific and neutral-sounding as possible. It is a controversial topic already. But Who's Afraid of Peer Review? is snappier for sure. But I do know that 2013 Science sting is already being linked to and discussed. Could we change the title to Who's Afraid of Peer Review? and have 2013 Science sting redirect to it? I've seen that but don't know how to do it. Citizenofdaworld (talk) 14:05, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

• You MOVE the page (by clicking on the "move" tab). It's as simple as that. The move process will automatically create a redirect and move all the page and talk page history to the new title. SpinningSpark 19:39, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Did You Know nomination

The article seems DYK eligible. I've nominated it at Template:Did you know nominations/Who's Afraid of Peer Review?. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:41, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

• Excellent nom, good hook! --Randykitty (talk) 11:22, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
• Many thanks to both of you! This has been pretty much the best experience a Wikipedia newbie could have in creating a first article.Citizenofdaworld (talk) 17:37, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks for writing this, Citizenofdaworld, it's the most interesting article I've seen in the DYK section in ages. Espresso Addict (talk) 03:45, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
• Congratulations, Citizenofdaworld. You're certainly a model Wikipedia newbie, and I hope you write many more such articles. RockMagnetist (talk) 06:26, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

GA?

This article seems like it could benefit from a WP:GAN review. If the author(s) are interested in submitting it? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:26, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Similar paper about conferences

In 1990s I have read an article of a guy who submitted similarly faked articles to several conferences which charged not-so-moderate fees for participation. Does anybody else remember this? Staszek Lem (talk) 23:25, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Related: fraudulent conferences. Fgnievinski (talk) 06:18, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

What is meant by "editing"?

Because of [[1]].

I think it's fairly obvious that what happens after a decision is made on a paper is more commonly called "editing". Here's why:

1) The dictionary definition of "editing" is: "prepare (written material) for publication by correcting, condensing, or otherwise modifying it", which obviously happens after a paper is accepted. What happens before acceptance is selection of which paper(s) to publish, which does not fall under "correcting, condensing, or otherwise modifying" since the paper is usually not modified prior to peer review. In fact during the peer review process the only person modifying the paper is the author. Notably the examples listed by @RandyKitty, "staff checking manuscripts, editors making decisions", do not involve modifying the paper. 2) Journal staff at publishing houses who handle the production process have job title "editor" (or similar titles, such as "editorial assistant").

It's true that people like the editor-in-chief or members of the editorial board of academic journals also have the word "editor" in their name, but I have yet to hear anyone call what they do "editing". More common is "handle peer review". Another example: when publishers invite people to join editorial boards, they don't say "we invite you to edit our journal", and when asked to describe what the roles are, they don't say "editing the journal" either.

tl; dr: I firmly believe that it's better to describe what happens before a paper is accepted as "peer review process", not "editing process". Banedon (talk) 13:28, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

• Editing is done by the editor-in-chief. What is done after that is called "production". An EIC organizes the peer-review process, but there are more things that happen after an article is submitted and before a final accept/reject decision is made: staff (or the EIC) review the manuscript to evaluate whether it is suitable for the journal, whether the manuscript is prepared according to the journal's instructions, whether there are any ethical issues, etc. Then usually the EIC tells the authors what changes need to be made in the manuscript for it to become acceptable or rejects it for publication. Once a final decision has been reached and an article has been accepted (obviously, if it is rejected everything stops here), it goes to the production department, where people handle small erros (typos, small grammatical mistakes) and typesetting. The EIC is not involved with this at all. So everything that happens before a final decision is made is "editing" (under the responsability of the EIC), which includes but is not limited to peer review. Everything that happens after the final decision is beyond the editing process. Editorial board members rarely do more for a journal than lend their reputation as a kind of endorsement (and sometimes they are being called upon by the EIC to opine on matters of editorial policy or to peer review the occasional article). And every EIC I know says (s)he "edits" this or that journal, not a single one says "I handle peer review". An editorial assistant, by the way, assists the editor with the different aspects of editing (kind of like a director's secretary). Like the EIC, they are not normally involved in production. --Randykitty (talk) 13:44, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Let's look at all the things you mention one by one. "staff (or the EIC) review the manuscript to evaluate whether it is suitable for the journal": no modifications made to the paper, and does not qualify as 'editing' by the dictionary definition. "whether the manuscript is prepared according to the journal's instructions": if a journal is checking this (fairly uncommon), and the manuscript isn't prepared according to the journal style, then the paper is usually returned to the author for modification. That makes the author the 'editor'. Sounds absurd to me. "whether there are any ethical issues": if there are, the paper is usually rejected outright, and nobody makes any modifications. "Then usually the EIC tells the authors what changes need to be made in the manuscript for it to become acceptable or rejects it for publication": which again makes the author the 'editor', since he's the one performing the modifications. Absurd. "people handle small erros (typos, small grammatical mistakes) and typesetting": and we finally arrive at what is unambigiously 'editing'.

Also all the EiCs I know say they handle peer review when pressed about what they actually do (although if pressed even more they'll say they do more than that, such as solicit papers) and editorial assistants absolutely are involved in production. Proof: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs2/view/14050227, see who's doing the hiring. Banedon (talk) 14:24, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

• Since I'm unable to convince you, let's see what other editors here have to say about this. Feel free to solicit opinions at the WikiProject Academic Journals, too. (But note that the editorial assistant on LinkedIn is supposed to "passing scripts to production" and all the other things listed are regular duties of the assistant to an EIC; also, this concerns books, so peer review is not necessarily involved). --Randykitty (talk) 14:55, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

What would be nice is if there were some reliable sources we could refer to here, rather than just having everyone go on their personal opinion. Does anyone have any suggestions?

The first time I read Banedon's edits, I thought they were an improvement (and part of the edit that does not concern this single noun phrase obviously is). On a later read, I noticed that the edited sentence says (to paraphrase), "Of the papers that underwent peer review, most showed no sign of peer review." This reads poorly, as a self-contradiction. --JBL (talk) 16:16, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

A direct source explaining what the internals of a publishing house are like will be hard to find (and may not even be relevant), but see e.g.:

To maintain a high-quality publication, all submissions undergo a rigorous review process. Characteristics of the peer review process are as follows ...

All research articles in International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education undergo a stringent peer review process, based on initial editor screening and anonymized refereeing by at least two undisclosed referees.

A paper that explicitly deals with the 'peer review process' as opposed to the 'editing process'. On its own it is meaningless, since Randykitty claims that peer review is contained within 'editing process', but note the description of the peer review process given in that paper, which clearly includes everything Randykitty attributes to 'editing process'.

All of our articles undergo a stringent peer-review process and are overseen by an editorial board of leading physicians in our specialist areas.

All submissions are peer‐reviewed for relevance and technical accuracy. If the editorial staff decides to pursue publication, all submissions undergo a thorough editing process.

After performing these checks the only source I've seen so far that refers to 'editing process' as the one currently implied by the text in the article is, ironically enough, Who's Afraid of Peer Review? by John Bohannon. I say 'ironic', because just look at the quote itself:

"I take full responsibility for the fact that this spoof paper slipped through the editing process," writes Editor-in-Chief Malcolm Lader, a professor of psychopharmacology at King's College London and a fellow of the Royal Society of Psychiatrists, in an e-mail. He notes, however, that acceptance would not have guaranteed publication: "The publishers requested payment because the second phase, the technical editing, is detailed and expensive. ...

i.e. there is another phase called 'technical editing' that occurs after acceptance, implying there are two 'editing process[es]'. If nothing else in the interests of unambiguity this should be changed.

PS: Oh, and I suspect Malcom Lader used 'editing process' instead of 'peer review process' because he feels he should shoulder some of the blame of the spoof paper slipping through. Using 'peer review process' here implies the peer reviewers are the ones most at fault. Banedon (talk) 01:30, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

The relevant RS would have to be something written about journal publishing, not something written by a journal (which is a primary source for this question).

In many of the cases in question there are no actual peer reviewers: the editors pretend to have conducted a peer review, make generic trivial comments, and accept the paper. Doesn't the self-contradictory form of the sentence you're trying to write bother you? --JBL (talk) 13:23, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

I don't see why primary sources by journals don't apply. If five different journals say the same thing about the peer review process, then it should be a pretty strong indication that the peer review process operates that way. In the same way we decide on things like climate change by scientific consensus, not by non-scientists writing about the topic. Also, I don't perceive the sentence as self-contradictory. If it bothers you, one can change it to something like "Of the 255 papers that underwent the entire peer review process to acceptance or rejection, about 60% of the final decisions occurred with no sign of actual peer review."

On another note I notice with some amusement that the next paragraph begins with "Among the publishers on Beall's List that completed the review process, 82% accepted the paper." That would work too - anything but 'editing process'. Banedon (talk) 01:20, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

References

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PLOSone and Hindawi mentioned, why other publishers not?

My edit has been reversed, but it is important to know which publishers, especially the larger and perhaps more controversial ones, rejected the sting. If MDPI or Frontiers accepted the sting it would have been rightly mentioned. I reversed the edit, and I think it should be first discussed here if you decide to edit it. Kenji1987 (talk) 21:44, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Agree with Kenji1987 and would prefer to list all of these. The argument that these are marginal publishers is not fair - they're quite big (for Biomed Central), or quite controversial (MDPI & Frontiers). Banedon (talk) 22:39, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

The source here (Bohannon) provides two standards we could use: either the publishers explicitly mentioned in the article text as having rejected the paper or the full list of all 98 or whatever publishers who rejected it. The second is obviously not going to happen; the first is what I advocate (and is the state my edit returned the article to). If a good-quality secondary source mentions a particular publisher in the context of WAoPR, that would also be a good reason to also include such a publisher on the list. But the standard that Kenji wants is "Here are a couple of publishers that I, Kenji, think are particularly worth mentioning here". I do not think that this is an acceptable standard, as it amounts to something on the boundary of WP:NOR and WP:WEIGHT. --JBL (talk) 23:18, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Then should the other publishers that did accept the sting be removed as well? If not, why not. If yes, why did you not do it? Kenji1987 (talk) 23:39, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

As I explained, I removed all the publishers from that sentence that were not explicitly discussed in the source. Bohannon devotes several sentences each to PLoS and Hindawi. --JBL (talk) 23:42, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Anyhow, I, Kenji, explained why I mentioned those publishers + source who mentioned it. Id like to hear from others what they think of it. Would it be possible to create a consensus on this? I am pretty sure that if aforementioned publishers accepted the sting people would have rightly added the information to this page, concerning certain trends I have seen on wikipedia. Kenji1987 (talk) 23:57, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Agree with JBL's take. A comprehensive listing of every publisher/journal is overkill. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:59, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Not sure whether you guys were this lenient, if it were the other way around. But I look forward hearing from others (if any). Kenji1987 (talk) 10:13, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Yes great we are all hypocrites because of something that only happened in your imagination. Go away. --JBL (talk) 11:57, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Well, given the controversialness of MDPI and Frontiers Media, it is important to provide well balanced information, hence I would like to reach a consensus (any idea how to start this up? Thanks). Or another way Ill just find quality secondary resources who mention this, to add some of these publishers. Kenji1987 (talk) 15:35, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

That's pretty rude. Also per Kenji1987, MDPI and Frontiers are controversial publishers so they should be listed. One could argue John Bohannon didn't write about them, but he wrote the article in 2013 and much of the controversies happened since (look at the MDPI & Frontiers Media pages). Banedon (talk) 23:48, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

... and as soon as someone produces a source that connects that controversy to the subject of this article, it will be worth including. --JBL (talk) 23:52, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

I'm on it - if I find these sources, I'll change the page. Also, isn't it way better to communicate like this, then by asking people to go away and having an aggressive tone in more general? Hope you can keep it up. Kenji1987 (talk) 06:06, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Your blatant hypocrisy with respect to personal remarks is not more charming than your baseless suggestions of hypocrisy in others. --JBL (talk) 11:24, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Ok you made your point. Let's keep it on-topic. Kenji1987 (talk) 11:33, 25 September 2019 (UTC)