Rejected Scientific Paper Recycled as an Ad

Roland Piquepaille writes "In this article, The Scientist reveals a curious and probably unique story. Two years ago, a researcher at Brown University submitted a paper to a scientific medicine journal. Then he received a note from the editor saying that his paper would not interest the journal readers. Thinking that his article was unfairly rejected before peer review, he decided to publish a two-page ad with the contents of his paper in the same journal. He even asked readers if they thought the contents interesting and received 33 positive replies. Read this summary before telling me what you think and if you've heard about a similar story."

Comments

such a nice move

[muzik4machines]

he did such a great move, proof that money is the key

Re:such a nice move

[muzik4machines]

and why do i always post at minus1, it's like my 10th post and my karma said terrible, even i i never posted anything than nice replies in my time here i don't get it

Re:such a nice move

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe your first posts were considered bad, inflamatory or ridiculous by the mods...just maybe, as i didn't read them

Re:such a nice move

[Anonymous Coward]

Insightful? The first two posts you made were "first post" and modded Offtopic. You sent yourself to -1 right out of the gate.

just some thoughts....

[Neitokun]

if this cancer 'only' effects 1 to 2 million people, why would it be of major intrest in a publication like this?

Re:just some thoughts....

[PsiPsiStar]

The point was that Dow had released a paper claiming that, while an abnormal number of their workers were getting cancer, that this wasn't because of some chemical that they were exposed to in the workplace.

The scientist "critiqued a 2003 Dow-funded paper (published) in Texas Medicine"

In other words, he argued that the industry funded paper was a lie, but had a hard time getting his arguments published.

Personally, I wish that he had gotten the article peer reviewed and published in another paper before doing this.

I wonder if he can now claim that he was "published in JOEM." Can people cite this work? Probably not, I'm thinking.

The effects of industry on scientific communication is pretty interesting. The overproscription of Statins in the US because the FDA was effectivly bribed is just one example.

Considering the various technology transfer acts passed by congress, more and more previously government funded is becoming the province of industry. The effects on the integrity of scientific research are only slowly becoming apparent.

Re:just some thoughts....

[whimsy]

It happens to be big business because of settlement $. See here, I've blogged it.

Re:just some thoughts....

[Anonymous Coward]

You can cite any work you want, any time. It's just not as credible citing an ad as it is citing a peer-reviewed paper, for instance.

And no, he can't claim to be published by the magazine. Especially not if he wants to be taken seriously at any point in the future.

Re:just some thoughts....

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Well,
It beats submitting the thing as a Cliff post on Slashdot.

Re:just some thoughts....

[Otter]

In other words, he argued that the industry funded paper was a lie, but had a hard time getting his arguments published.

Here's an analogy to what he did: let's say you read something in your local newspaper that you think is improperly argued. You write up your objection and ask the New York Times to run it as a bylined piece. They return it and tell you to try it as a letter to the editor in the newspaper that ran the original story.

The guy isn't facing total suppression of his work by The Man; he's insisting on publishing it in a far more prestigious form than any reasonable person could think it warrants.

Re:just some thoughts....

[Frumious Wombat]

Well, is anyone sure that there's a problem here: either the paper was valid, and rejected by an editor for conflict of interest, in which case there is a problem, but the paper should have gone to another journal, or it's not of interest, and was correctly bounced. It seems a valid test would be to submit it to another journal, and see if they bite.

Going the advertisement/straight to the media route is generally bad, as that is what bit Pons and Fleischman.

A more interesting question would be why not, in the age of web-based publishing, don't scientific journals adopt some variant of /.'s rating system? ACS pre-publishes articles on the web (i.e. available before the journal issue has the pages ready), so in theory you could allow authorized users to rate them. I'd love to be able to browse J. Phys. Chem. A. (for instance) at +2, so as to quickly find which articles my colleagues find interesting, then go back and give the rest of the articles a closer read later.

Re:just some thoughts....

[Doc Ruby]

Actually, he is facing that suppression. The journal editor said that if he'd known it was being published as an ad, he'd have canceled it. Despite the standard ethical journalism policy of separating editors from publishers (ad managers), to prevent bias of editors by knowing who's paying the rent. It's not clear, from the tiny initial coverage in this Slashdot story, whether the editor can "fix" that "oversight" in the future, or whether that policy will continue to protect that avenue of publication.

As for the reasonable prestige this study warrants, why do you agree with the editor that the story is "uninteresting"? The Dow study, which exonerated Dow in the statistically impossible cancer rate among their asbestos-exposed workers, was interesting enough to publish. This paper not only contradicts that self-interested result, but establishes clearly suggests a causal relationship between the asbestos and the cancer. Which would be of high interest to readers of a journal of occupational and environmental medicine. Why not?

Re:just some thoughts....

[Otter]

Actually, he is facing that suppression. The journal editor said that if he'd known it was being published as an ad, he'd have canceled it. Despite the standard ethical journalism policy of separating editors from publishers (ad managers), to prevent bias of editors by knowing who's paying the rent.

1) I don't consider the failure to buy his way into a particular journal to be "total suppression".

2) Perhaps you've never seen a scientific journal -- with some very rare exceptions, they have 2-4 pages of ad space for equipment or reagent makers. Small journals don't have elaborate policies of editorial/advertising separation (although some major ones do, as the article notes).

3) In any case, what's at issue here isn't advertising driving editorial content, it's the opposite. I don't see the problem with an editor keeping his journal from turning into a laughingstock by printing "articles" from any nut with some money.

The Dow study, which exonerated Dow in the statistically impossible cancer rate among their asbestos-exposed workers, was interesting enough to publish.

You don't seem to understand what happened here. The original study was published in a different, marginal journal. Almost by definition, a criticism of it doesn't rate a reviewed article in a better journal -- it rarely rates a reviewed article in the original journal.

How you've reached such strong conclusions about the original study and the response to it, I'm not certain.

Re:just some thoughts....

[Doc Ruby]

There is a debatable issue over whether any publication can bypass its editorial filter with content paid to be run as an ad. That policy should be bidirectional: just as ads, without editorial merit, shouldn't run as stories, likewise stories shouldn't run as ads - the magazine medium doesn't allow the reader to effectively distinguish between the sponsored and scientific content well enough, especially in aggregate across many issues, stories and ads. But in this case, the story was rejected as "not interesting", though it does seem interesting to me. As a layman (with a great deal of formal science education and work experience), I read quite a few scientific journals from time to time. In science, studies which contradict negative results about people's health tests are more interesting than the ones which don't suggest a theraputic path. Especially in a controversial issue like asbestos liability, such news is interesting. And when an (apparently) disintersted researcher contradicts negative results from an interested (probably liable) party, that's very interesting. People's lives, and a corporation's liability, are on the line. But the research is rejected because it's "not interesting". That's suspicious.

Re:just some thoughts....

[Anonymous Coward]

It was 1 or 2 cases PER million, not 1 or 2 million people.

Re:just some thoughts....

[Anonymous Coward]

It beats submitting the thing as a Cliff post on Slashdot.

Why? Science magazine thinks material on the Internet is just as good as what they publish. At least they give rejections because information has already appeared on the Internet.

33 replies of Interesting....

[zappepcs]

Hmmmmm
To some folk in the world, 5 hurricanes in a row in one small part of the world is considered "interesting".....

Skipping past peer review sort of invalidates the point of being some of the journals, doesn't it?

Hey, if you have something to say, we all want to be heard, but paid distribution of your comment may always be seen as self-promoting.

In either case, did anyone figure out if he was right?

Re:33 replies of Interesting....

[mnmn]

"To some folk in the world, 5 hurricanes in a row in one small part of the world is considered "interesting"....."

Heck one hurricane is interesting where theres hardly any wind.

"Skipping past peer review sort of invalidates the point of being some of the journals, doesn't it?"

Apparently he was more interested in the readers' views than the peer review itself.

"Hey, if you have something to say, we all want to be heard, but paid distribution of your comment may always be seen as self-promoting."

Me thinks it was self-promoting. If my articles are rejected from a journal, I'll try to develop them further, rather than shove it down peoples throats.

"In either case, did anyone figure out if he was right?"

Its a medical journal. Theres no right or wrong, just opinions, given the 33-odd positive replies.

I've seen researchers who submit an article after a great deal of research, and word it properly so it gets published quick. And then I've seen researchers so convinced of their own work, they just move to other journals, mailing lists etc rather than even consider they might be wrong. We wouldnt know of the importance of this guys actual work; journal editors arent exactly renowned for being the authority on facts.

Re:33 replies of Interesting....

[PsiPsiStar]

This guy wasn't rejected after peer review, though. He didn't choose to skip peer review. He was rejected because his research "wasn't interesting."

This is what he was protesting, I think.

If he had been rejected after peer review, it would have been a different story.

Re:33 replies of Interesting....

[The Fun Guy]

IAAS and I serve as a peer-reviewer for a number of journals. Among the criteria we are asked to judge are the significance and originality of the work. If the work isn't "interesting", i.e. if it is not very significant/important or it's not very original (confirmatory results, for example), then it gets scored lower. The journal's space is limited, and the editors would rather devote it to new, important information rather than results which don't advance the field.

If the bulk of the readership is going to skip the article because it presents no new information or because it deals with a topic that no one cares about, then the editors are right to reject it.

In every journal, the "Instructions to Authors" section spells out what kind of manuscript will be considered for publication... the topics appropirate for this journal, the kinds of research, etc. If your paper isn't right for this journal, publish it somewhere else.

Years

[metalhed77]

I've been a member of this website for years and I just want to voice the fact that I'm pissed off at yet another Roland Piquepaille article. And yes, I'm posting this at +2, gotta use that karma for something useful.

Re:Years

[QuantumG]

It's because he's french isn't it? I can understand that.

Re:Years

[Anonymous Coward]

What the fuck are you on about?

Re:Years

[Anonymous Coward]

They do know how to pucker the lips!

Re:Years

[Anonymous Coward]

Here, read this: http://www.thedarkcitadel.com/index.php?itemid=276

Re:Years

[NanoGator]

"It's because he's french isn't it? I can understand that."

It's because bitching about Roland is a sign of status.

If somebody were really offended by Roland, they'd know that the best way to get this guy off the air is to not up the post count by bitching about him.

Re:Years

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that page outdated? It's all about ads, but I'm not seeing any on Roland's page (even with Adblock disabled).

Re:Years

[Anonymous Coward]

Go see an eye doctor.

Re:Years

[Kalak]

I don't understand the backlash in this case. If someone else is covering the story, link to it and remove the need to click to his site. Then I'd say the complaining would be fair. In this case, no one seems to have done that. That's a major difference between Groklaw and /. Here, users bitch and complain. There, you get links to the absolute source wherever possible. Got a link to the source? Please give it. I'd love to see it. Hopefully it will have more detail. If not then, maybe it's possible that Roland has created a story this time.

Slashdot rarely produces any new content either, and is now an ad/subscription based site. Why are we still here if they are just putting together other people's stuff and "selling it".

You can still just:
echo "127.0.0.1 www.primidi.com >> /etc/hosts
(or the windows hosts file if you're using a Windows based OS)

Without this story being pointed as coming from somewhere else, I linked to his site to read it. The entire controversy with Roland seems to echo what the story is about anyway - Who controls what is seen in a "peer reviewed" publication. /. is peer reviewed - by the editors. Complaints about Slashdot echo complains about the peer review process in the story. I'm not a Roland fan boy, but until someone produces credible links to refute that this is his, I say it's worth linking to. I know I would have not have heard of this incident without this story, and as someone who has published (limited) works, I find it relevant and interesting.

In short, give me a reason to dispute that *this* story it not appropriate for the Science section of Slashdot, and not based on the name of the submitter, or the editor who posted it.

Re:Years

[metalhed77]

If somebody were really offended by Roland, they'd know that the best way to get this guy off the air is to not up the post count by bitching about him.

That's monumentally stupid. You're saying that a higher percentage of posts complaining about said post will help him? Esp. when said post is rated at +5 and has community support?

Re:Years

[metalhed77]

It's not that it's a bad story, I liked the story, unfortunately, Roland's self-serving self-linking is what puts me, and so many other slashdotter's off.

He blatantly rips off content to get cheap hits on his site for ad revenue.

Read this to see why.

Re:Years

[daviddennis]

Since the article itself was listed before the "summary" written by Piquepaille, I don't see anything wrong with it being published. It was a very interesting article, at least to me, because I'm interested in learning more about how scientific journals work.

I did think it was odd how you were encouraged to go to the "summary", but I read the article without going there and therefore the submission did not achieve Mr Piquepaille's goals of more hits for his site.

Re:Years

[metalhed77]

I went to the summary first.

Re:Years

[NanoGator]

"That's monumentally stupid. You're saying that a higher percentage of posts complaining about said post will help him? Esp. when said post is rated at +5 and has community support?"

Yes, absolutely. Slashdot's ad driven. More comments == more ads served. More ads serve == more ad revenue. By posting Roland stories, they're benefitting themselves. They don't give a rat's ass what the community thinks. If they did, would we see dupes ever again?

Re:Years

[metalhed77]

You're just exceedingly cynical. Ultimately, they realize if they keep this shit up people will leave.

Ever wonder why Katz is gone?

Re:Years

[Anonymous Coward]

/. is peer reviewed - by the editors.

Show me some evidence of this.

I've seen stories posted with completely broken links - showing that the editor didn't even bother clicking through.

I've seen stories posted with headlines or writeups that don't bear any resemblance to the linked story - showing that the editor didn't even bother reading the article.

Just yesterday, Taco posted a story with the headline saying 25%, when the story said 5%.

Oh look, another dupe just appeared on the main page telling us about CherryOS again.

Don't tell me that the editors review. It's plainly obvious they don't.

Re:Years

[Spy Hunter]

Look,

• Contrary to that article, many Piquepaille stories are not accepted.
• All his stories now contain links to primary sources as their first and most prominent links, and his blog only as a secondary link.
• Some Piquepaille stories are interesting and informative. Though I readily admit that some are inane and shouldn't have been posted.
• The ads are quite small and unobtrusive. As I type this, one of them is for an algorithmic music composing program, which I think is cool. You don't see ads for algorithmic music composing programs just anywhere.
• The amount of money Roland makes is immaterial. It's not like it comes out of your pocket. He doesn't run flashing "punch the monkey" ads. Nothing is stopping you from getting a piece of the action by posting your own articles, either. All that matters here is the quality of his posted articles.
• Finally, and most importantly, what Roland Piquepaille does is nearly identical to what Slashdot does, in every way! Let me describe his process: he looks for articles in mainstream news sources, writes a little summary, cites a paragraph or two, and posts it. That's actually better than Slashdot; here the paragraphs are usually plagarized, and yet somehow misspelled and filled with grammar errors. Slashdot runs ads too, you know. Slashdot is also making money off of your eyeballs by basically copying article text from primary news sources. They don't even do the research themselves, they rely on other people to plagarize the articles for them! Many Slashdot articles are of an even lower quality than Piquepaille's worst.

I completely fail to understand the animosity that Slashdot readers have toward Roland Piquepaille. Is it because he seems to be French? Or what?

Re:Years

[NanoGator]

"You're just exceedingly cynical."

Maybe. On the other hand, when Katz was around, Slashdot wasn't completely ad supported.

Re:Years

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would I care?

Re:Years

[Suppafly]

I wonder how much money he is making off the google ads from the slashdotting we are giving him.

Re:Years

[SEWilco]

Don't tell me that the editors review. It's plainly obvious they don't.

And remember that if they do review and reject your /. submission, you can just buy an ad with the same content.

Re:Years

[Kalak]

Content is accepted or rejected by "peer" geeks. Calling them editors is really a misnomer, since they obviously don't edit, they just review and decide if a submission is worth of posting to /.

Reviewing submissions is the key here. Editing really isn't their function, as editing implies they have a direct effect on the content, instead of being gatekeepers. (Some editorialize more than others though.)

Re:Years

[Anonymous Coward]

they just review and decide if a submission is worth of posting to /.

My point wasn't that they don't edit. My point was that they don't even review. Can you really call it reviewing when they don't click the links or notice basic factual errors?

Blow Jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeh, well, Little Timmy gots to get his BLOW JOBS!

approach

[phloydphreak]

The intersting point in the 'The Scientist' article is Egilman's (advertisment placer's) approach to a system which he considers to be corrupt. from TA: the JOEM "(has)indirect ties to Dow Chemical and its strategic partner, GlaxoSmithKline}. By posting his article as an advertisement, Egilman bypassed a system of information suppression. His motives were not for fame or glory, but to publish material to those who are interested and have a say in such issues. I for one give Egilman a thumbs up. Very insightful approach to the problem.

Re:approach

[Otter]

Since you're the only person commenting on the subject, I'll stick my points here:

1) Peer review is there to determine scientific correctness, not whether a paper should be published or not. There is nothing inappropriate about editorial prescreening for fit and impact -- otherwise the peer review system would be overrun. This manuscript was a criticism of a paper in a different, obscure journal and it's not in the least surprising that it was rejected before review. It should have been submitted as an unreviewed letter to the original journal.

2) Any additional exposure his paper may have gained through this stunt is more than balanced out by the fact that Egilman will now permanently be known in the field as "the nut who ran his stupid letter as an advertisement".

3) The "indirect ties" thing is ludicrous. Anyone who works in a field has "indirect ties" of that degree. Egilman, as I said, is a paranoid nut but the real idiot here is the editor at International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health who used this as an opportunity to throw dirt at a competitor. As though his journal has never rejected a paper about which a similarly far-fetched conspiracy theory could have been made.

Re:approach

[shoppa]

Peer review is there to determine scientific correctness, not whether a paper should be published or not.

I have to disagree - I've refereed for several journals, and always one element of review is whether this is the appropriate journal or not.

In a couple cases I know the editor followed my recommendation and had the article published in an affiliated journal which was more appropriate. The "affiliated journal" thing is important, because if it was simply rejected it would've had to be refereed again, slowing down the publishing.

It's rare for the refereeing process to be purely rejectional (is that a word?) - the idea is to help good stuff to publication. In the perfect world the editors, referees, and authors all work together instead of against each other.

Re:approach

[Otter]

Absolutely true -- I was simplifying for brevity. My point was that there's nothing unusual or improper about rejecting submissions without going to peer review at all.

No Story...

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

So a magazine chooses not to publish an article, the author than pays to publish it in the same magazine, and a few people tell him it's interesting. Maybe I just don't get it, because to me there is no story here. Or at least not much of a story.

Re:No Story...

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

So a magazine chooses not to publish an article, the author than pays to publish it in the same magazine,

What Piquepaille neglected to mention is that it was actually a test run for the new "pay to publish" system most scientific journals are considering.

Re:Ack! Roland strikes again.

[Anonymous Coward]

Timmy was getting lonely for Rolands tight lips.

Another Roland Piquepaille special!

[WasterDave]

Because of Slashdot's famously high editorial standards, another Piquepaille blog plug gets popped onto the front page.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, another few hundred links that may actually be of interest to nerds and that may actually matter go rotting in the submission queue.

Jesus wept. What have we done to deserve this?

Dave

Re:Another Roland Piquepaille special!

[NanoGator]

"Meanwhile, back at the ranch, another few hundred links that may actually be of interest to nerds and that may actually matter go rotting in the submission queue."

If Slashdot isn't supplying what you demand, then seek a new site.

Seriously, do you expect him to go away if all his submissions generate 100+ comments even if half of them are bitch bitch bitching? Let me put it another way: We still have dupes, stories with factual errors, and grammar abuse in the articles.

Re:Another Roland Piquepaille special!

[TuringTest]

Slashdot is the proof that market forces don't provide an optimal solution.

/. is valuable because of its attention share. Any other weblog, even with higher editing standards, can't compete with the Slashdot mindshare.

Re:Another Roland Piquepaille special!

[Daetrin]

Yeah! Why did this stupid story get published while the interesting story i submited got rejected? I think i'll pay for an advertisement^W^W^W^W copy-paste my submission as a post in another unrelated story while complaining bitterly about the stupidity of the editors!

SCAM Alert!

[Anonymous Coward]

Timmy has taken to posting his Roland tripe late at night to avoid the wall of troll posts. Another way would be to just not post 'em.

Tell us, Tim, how much $ do you make off of this scam?

If no-one else seems to be doing it...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think _I_ have to get my hands on this Roland Pigfucker and quite simply murder him. I want to get rid of his shitty stories already! God damn editors! Wake up! No-one wants Rolands retarded content-free-overrhyped-shit-articles.

Re:If no-one else seems to be doing it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever actually read his blog? Or are you just jumping on the band-wagon?

Re:If no-one else seems to be doing it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello Roland.

Yes I have. Who wouldn't have you god damn idiot?! His crap has been posted for ages already, and because of the interesting wording in the headlines I clicked through quite frequently. Only to be greeted by totally useless site with so much hype and pseudo science that you could make a season of star trek out of it. The very first time I clicked through, I was reading the blog entry very carefully many times, because I couldn't find the actual content anywhere. In due time I learned the pattern and have developed a serious case of RolanPigfucquerelleRage. Which, in lay-mans terms means that I have a strong urge to kill him every time I see another piece of feces by him on slashdot frontpage. If he would have something interesting to say, he probably should have reader base of his own, without trying to leech of of an already semi-hostile crowd.
And if, for whatever reason you think there is something usefull in his site, go drown yourself right away. Your precious nutrients are better used as fish food.

Re:If no-one else seems to be doing it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you stick "127.0.0.1 www.primidi.com" in your hosts file, or in your ad-blocking tool of choice? No worries about accidentally going to his site..

Re:If no-one else seems to be doing it...

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be 0.0.0.0

ahhhh!!!!!!!

[deglr6328]

FUCK YOU ROLAND! FUCK. YOU. I have posted here for 6 years, submitted and had accepted many stories and have excellent karma so I don't care if this one, out of character post loses me a few karma points. Every damn time I click a link in a story without first looking at the submitter and find myself at your uninformative useless advert vehicle of a "website" (and this is an often occurrence) I feel like I've been trolled. The fact that you have the shameless audacity to ask the readers of your submissions to "Read this summary before telling me what you think and if you've heard about a similar story." is vile and scummy. I have heard and previously agreed with all the "who cares it's just a dumb /. submission by some loser" appeals to better temperament but this has got to be like the 20th time this has happened and it really get's my goat. You are trolling your own readers for advertiser cash and that is disgusting. I don't know if you give kickbacks to Taco or what (or maybe they just don't give a shit), but the fact that /. keeps posting your non-stories reflects extremely poorly on the status of any journalistic integrity /. claims to have.

Re:ahhhh!!!!!!!

[stripe42]

Took the words out of my mouth man. I feel the pain...

Re:ahhhh!!!!!!!

[NanoGator]

" keeps posting your non-stories reflects extremely poorly on the status of any journalistic integrity /. claims to have."

Where does Slashdot claim to have any journalistic integrity?

Re:ahhhh!!!!!!!

[QuantumFTL]

I agree that Roland's "stories" have got to stop - but is there anything we can do to further this end? (and I don't mean hack/ddos his site, although I'm surprised that hasn't happenned yet). I'm all for complaining when things suck, but seriously is there anything we *CAN* do to stop this? Maybe a firefox plugin that filters Roland out?

I know that the editors don't actually read the site - the dupes pretty much prove that - but seriously, I'm paying for this site. I made a choice to subscribe, before Roland came around. Slashdot has had it's moments but seriously... Come on guys!

Re:ahhhh!!!!!!!

[jd]

It doesn't, but it is generally held to a higher standard than a typical blog or webvert. Much of the time, it actually upholds a very high standard of integrity - better than many current media outlets - with any public retractions or updates added onto the front page, rather than tucked away out of sight.

So, while Slashdot makes no claims itself, many geeks act as if Slashdot was about as trustable as an online source is going to get. Usually - not always, Cmdr Taco isn't God - Slashdot is an extremely good source of information.

It might be good if the Slash engine allowed people to rate submitters and "referees". Not to filter anything - you can do that already - but to post a composite score of some kind on the article. You then set a preference of only seeing articles with a credibility score above some threshold value.

Americans are, if nothing else, competitive. By scoring the credibility of articles, those involved in writing them, and those involved in posting them, will see their scores climb or fall by how they use or abuse the system. I think many would start to look for ways to get their scores as high as possible.

It's not a perfect fix, but it would give people feedback on when they made mistakes, and when they were doing well, in areas not currently covered by moderation.

Re:ahhhh!!!!!!!

[NanoGator]

"It doesn't, but it is generally held to a higher standard than a typical blog or webvert. Much of the time, it actually upholds a very high standard of integrity - better than many current media outlets - with any public retractions or updates added onto the front page, rather than tucked away out of sight."

Wow, I seriously disagree with this. Slashdot has demonstrated bias and sensationalism numerous times. If you like Linux, FireFox, OSS in general, Farscape, etc then you're happy here. If you don't mind Microsoft, find FireFox to be clunky, enjoy Enterprise, etc you're poorly represented here. Not only a good chunk of the stories sensationalist in nature, but the mod system basically drives conformity in public opinion.

To put it another way: I have a hard time believing anything that's printed on Slashdot. I know I'm not alone in this feeling.

Re:ahhhh!!!!!!!

[deglr6328]

Outlets which publish interviews with leaders in the science and tech fields, book reviews, editorials and politics commentary generally need some kind of integrity, else why would anyone give any credence to their publication? Why read it at all? The journalistic integrity is implicit. Let me be clear, I think /. is still a great place. I really love the fact that there is a place where I can submit articles I think are cool and that I think others here will be interested in and then see insightful and fascinating comments on those articles that I never would've previously considered. That's one of the things that makes /. great. The other thing is the readership here and its unusually high level of genuine curiosity and intelligence. Some say this has declined over the years but I don't really see that too much. Exhibit A in this case is the person who posted a reply to my comment (just below your reply) he is QuantumFTL. He has, among other things, been generous enough to post stories and comments on the mars rover project from his inside viewpoint at JPL where he works. I think that is pretty damn cool and very nice of him. THAT is what this community should be about (and for the most part largely still IS about), sharing cool stuff with everyone else here; that's what makes it great. Roland, on the other hand exploits and dupes his readers into clicking links in his stories not because he wants to contribute anything of value (a mere glance at his site reveals it to be simply regurgitated press releases with a minor amount of padded fluff to make it appear legit) to the community here but instead, merely because he wants to reap their click thrus and ad dollars. That sucks, and if left unchecked, has the potential to, I fear, hurt this unique community.

Re:ahhhh!!!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a hard time believing anything that's printed on Slashdot.

Me too, but then again I'd still agree if you take out the word on Sladhot and get:

I have a hard time believing anything that's printed.

The general media is written by people. People always have an agenda to push, and often times don't even realize that they are pushing an agenda. Seriously... it's just that people tend to agree with whatever their friends are doing.

Think about it in terms of music. Most people listen to pretty much the same music that their friends listen to. And they hate the same music that their friends hate. Put them in a different group of friends (such as going off to college) all of a sudden they will develop a vastly different taste in music than before. They will open their minds to new music, and find much of what they used to like to be cheesy. They will learn to enjoy some of the music they used to hate. And the defining influence on their change in taste? The taste of the group they have been hanging out with.

Re:ahhhh!!!!!!!

[Muhammar]

you forgot to mention the leftist bias.

Re:ahhhh!!!!!!!

[Triones]

In a 'real' publication, these editors will all be fired long time ago. So I'd suggest, fire timothy.
Or, at least, cut the editor's salary by one day everytime he or she posts a dupe, false, or a scam like this.

Slashdot really needs some competition.
I hope someone will start a 'fork' so that we can all move over. Then slashdot might finallly do something, or become 'stuff that doesn't matter'.

Re:ahhhh!!!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

"I hope someone will start a 'fork'"

too cliche. The "I hope someone . . ." phrase with it's implied "besides me."

Re:ahhhh!!!!!!!

[synaptik]

but is there anything we can do to further this end

Here's one idea...
1. Have someone who shares our anti-Roland sentiments write some original, intriguing content that is exemplary of the type of 'news' and/or 'stuff' that matters to the patrons of this website.
2. Submit above to slashdot.
3. Set a threshold on the serving website, so that the interesting content switches to a complaint on Roland Piquepaille, when the server load reaches some $CRITICAL_THRESHOLD.
4. REPEAT as necessary.
5. Eventually, the slashdot editors will get punk'd in this manner enough times that they'll eventually have to admit that they are giving Roland preferential submission priviledges.
6. PROFIT (added because someone else would, otherwise.)

Re:ahhhh!!!!!!!

[TFGeditor]

"I hope someone will start a 'fork' so that we can all move over."

They did. http://www.technocrat.net/

Re:ahhhh!!!!!!!

[RobertB-DC]

I agree that Roland's "stories" have got to stop - but is there anything we can do to further this end? (and I don't mean hack/ddos his site, although I'm surprised that hasn't happenned yet).

That's it! If we DDOS the Roland Pig-Pile's site, he'll have to stop sumbmitting his borderline-plagarism drivel. And I know just how to do it... Submit a story to Slashdot.org . If that doesn't bring his server to it's knees, nothing will.

outdated

[TheSHAD0W]

Let's face it; professional scientific publications are outdated. Why are we trusting our input to a few groups of editors when all the articles could be published over the net? Yes, you'd still need editors to keep from being overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of publications, but it'd be easier to set up as a meta-publisher/editor, meaning there would be more sources and better competition between them; and better still, scientists wouldn't have a 3 month delay between finishing their research and having people read about it.

Re:outdated

[drnlm]

You're missing the whole point of peer-review. The classical model of scientific jounrals is that the edito removes obvious junk and hands the interesting articles off to the reviewers, If the reviewer, who are people in similiar fields, come back wiith "It basically looks alright", then it gets publsihed. The editor should only really be involved when the reviewers disagree. Its a simple filter to basically catch errors in the science (depending on the filed, the filter can be failry lack, or very tight).

The article is about somebody protesting the editortial decision not to have the paper reviewed. It's an interesting, although probably expensive, way of protesting editorial policy.

Re:outdated

[AdmiralWeirdbeard]

I would add that most scientific journals ARE also published over the net... if you know what you're talking about...

wasn't this done already?

[phUnBalanced]

I think Peggy Hill tried this maneuver. The plan was to pull the musings once the readers got hooked.

Roland Piquepaille

[sahrss]

Screw that: Another Roland Piquepaille article.

Slashdot IS a damn troll itself, for continuing to post that lamer's blog plugs. I am going to actively begin searching out another tech site with comments; I like a lot of the comments here at /., but the editors SUCK.

Re:Roland Piquepaille

[NanoGator]

"Slashdot IS a damn troll itself, for continuing to post that lamer's blog plugs. I am going to actively begin searching out another tech site with comments; I like a lot of the comments here at /., but the editors SUCK."

The editors ALWAYS sucked. I've been here quite a few years myself, and I cannot remember a single period where there wasn't SOME complaint about how incompetent the Slashdot Editors are.

If it riles you up so much, go to news.google.com. I don't really care where you go provided you chill on this topic. Why? Because I'm defending the dude? Uh, no. It's because he and Slashdot BOTH make money through advertising. In that business, bad publicity is good publicity. Ever see that Howard Stern movie? "Fans of the show listen for an average of 45 minutes a day. People that hate him listen for 3 hours. Think about it.

Re:Roland Piquepaille

[Anonymous Coward]

news.google.com doesn't have comments.
Any recommendations for a news site that does?

Re:Roland Piquepaille

[NanoGator]

"Any recommendations for a news site that does?"

Slashdot's a little more general purpose than the sites I've seen. What do you find interesting?

I'm sorry I made that suggestion without giving you a good direction to go. Truth be told, my expectations of Slashdot aren't that high, so I haven't felt the need to go elsewhere. In the mean time, I have a primary interest in CG/Computer rendering. So I hang out at CGTalk.com. (Often they quote Slashdot stories, hehe.)

Re:Roland Piquepaille

[LordPhantom]

How about some helpful suggustions for an alternate? Aside from google news :)

Re:Roland Piquepaille

[sahrss]

I have you on my red list, which means I was pretty certain you were trolling at some point, but thanks for the reply, and sorry I've been kinda short.

I'm interested in anything related to computing; mostly I code games, and while I find the game section articles here interesting (mostly the comments in them, actually,) I learn a lot from the comments in any stories that catch my interest.

So any site or any number of sites centered around tech, with a fair number of comments per story, and a moderation system, is what I'm looking for. I haven't run across any like that except Slashdot, but I haven't searched, either.

Re:Roland Piquepaille

[NanoGator]

Whatcha interested in?

Assuming comments aren't what you're after, it seems to me a few well chosen RSS feeds would keep ya happy. :)

Re:Roland Piquepaille

[FrenZon]

You might like http://digg.com/, which is completely user-run. The amusing part is that it still manages to get its fair share of dupes and people who whine about trolls posting Slashdot articles.

You want the real answer?

[Julian Morrison]

What have you done to deserve this? Stuck with Slashdot, and put up with its faults. You want a better "REAL news for nerds, stuff that ACTUALLY matters", go start one.

No, seriously. If you think /. is getting a free ride, time to set up in competition.

Re:You want the real answer?

[2TecTom]

Well, it's a great theory. In truth however, starting anew is not a blanket solution nor usually even the best option. Why not spend a small amount of time in order to fix a fundamental flaw in an otherwise excellent design?

As well, your rhethorical solution fails to preserve the momentum and history of the community that we all have spent years developing.

Fucking Editors

[Punboy]

They dont fucking look at the links anymore. They've gone lazy. Its like "Hey look! Science -approve-." Seriously. This guy has a shameless advertisement in a link. This should NOT be allowed. I voted that we have the llama that was responsible for approving this add sacked. And we should NOT sack those responsible for sacking the llama. Ok, im done with the Monty Python jokes. Seriously, this needs to stop.

Re:Fucking Editors

[anthony_dipierro]

You're talking about Timothy. I don't think he ever looked at the links. Anyway, I wonder what else the Slashdot editors have to do, and how much they're getting paid for this. Even if they do a good job they do what, sort through a bunch of spam and pick out 5-10 interesting stories a day? Sounds like 1 or 2 hours of work a day which could be done from anywhere in the world that has internet access, and that's assuming really quality due diligence (which I highly doubt we see). Moreover, there is very little skill involved and lots of people would be willing to do this for free. I really hope subscription payments aren't going to pay these people.

Anyway, I still like slashdot over all. It's not really the official editors that make the site, it's everyone else who submits the content for free. It'd be nice if we could convince everyone to switch to some other site, a free one of course, but it'd be hard to make that happen.

boobie-shaped clouds

[qurk]

Heya. Since I just read all the articles and EVERY ONE is bashing on this roland guy, I figured I'd post something different :)

I was driving through a heavy downpour on my way home from work tonight, and it stopped raining about 2 miles east of my home, and on the last stretch, I noticed some very cool clouds. I looked up, and they were right above me! Dozens of droopy boob clouds! :) Very cool!

I had bookmarked this site a few weeks ago and glad I did, now. The boobie clouds I saw were a little more defined than the ones in the pictures here, but not as pretty with sunset. I guess they are called Mammatus clouds.

http://www.extremeinstability.com/05-4-19.htm

As an aside, the last time I remember seeing these clouds was when I heard about tornadoes likely about 100 miles to the NorthEast, and the fact that the entire east side of the sky was a heck of a cloud system. So I hit the road, drove past the tornado about 5 miles away (found the hail though!) and about 20 miles later I got to where they had predicted the tornado..but instead I got to see these awesome boobie clouds. Much better than the ones I saw tonight or in the pictures on that page. Perfect, droopy, half-spheres everywhere. Was cool :)

Headline cut short

[FidelCatsro]

It is ment to read
Rejected Scientific Paper Recycled as an Ad for Roland Piquepailles Blog

Re:Headline cut short

[FidelCatsro]

To fill out that a bit ,
I should note that it was a joke , I don't begrude the editors or Mr Piquapaille for this . Slashdot and Piquepailles (gonna call him roland from now on , god thats a tricky name to type)blog are both comercial sites and as such this is how they garner revenue (Advertising).

I don't know if the rumours of Timothy pushing the blogs for financial gain are true or if it just so happens its a coincidence , It dosn't really matter to me.
If the story holds some intrest , then fair play if they can make a little on the side from this .

Im betting that Roland submits a hell of alot of storys that dont get through aswell .

Sites suporting each other is nothing new , They pass clients/customers between each other all the time .

All i would say though , is if this is an AD aswell as a story if it could be a bit more blatent with the fact its an AD .

Re:Headline cut short

[zero_offset]

Can't subscribers view a user's submissions, both rejected and accepted, or am I mistakened? Either way, one can't deny he does have an extremely suspiciously high acceptace-rate, and that his blog is pretty much crap.

Roland #1
Roland #2

Re:Headline cut short

[FidelCatsro]

Can't deny that there is alot of evidence .
I wouldnt care atall if they admited it and were open about the fact(if it is really hapening), i just dont like Ads which pretend to be factual information .

Groklaw?

[Craig Maloney]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this guy is blatanly using Groklaw's graphics and color scheme. When I first clicked on the link, I thought "Hmmm... wonder what Groklaw is doing covering this story". Pretty sad.

Re:Groklaw?

[omega9]

Are you sure about that?

Re:Groklaw?

[Kalak]

It's a default theme in a Manilla based blog. Groklaw started as a radio.userland blod before it became it's own hosted site using Geeklog. It brought the graphics with it.

Re:Groklaw?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this guy is blatanly using Groklaw's graphics and color scheme.

That's because people avoid clicking through on Roland Piquepaille stories. Nobody wants to support plagiarism.

Curious & unique

[Anonymous Coward]

bullshit ... this kind of evil censorship happens each and everyday

actually, it's criminal & common, but that's the rich, so no surprise

Googling on the name of the header image...

[porkchop_d_clown]

reveals 40-50 sites with that image somewhere on their site, although none of them seem to be using it.

I dunno. Maybe it's a standard part of some webdesign tool kit?

Re:Googling on the name of the header image...

[Craig Maloney]

It's actually a radio-userland template. I checked after posting. At least Groklaw had the decency to link to the original artist.

This is what Benny Peiser should do..

[DiamondGeezer]

After having his paper censored by Science magazine for spurious reasons, Benny Peiser should pay for an advert instead!

Why didn't somebody think of it before?

Hosts file - 127.0.0.0 primidi.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Never see Roland again

On slashdot....

[bcattwoo]

On slashdot rejected ads are recycled as articles!

Roland

[Anonymous Coward]

The most convincing argument that Roland Piquepaille is paying the Slashdot editors is that, at the time of writing, reading this story at +5 threshold, there are only three comments at +5, and all of them are complaining about him. The most recent Roland advertisments have all been the same. And yet the Slashdot editors continue to post his adverts.

Put Roland in your hosts file

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you won't see him

Don't join stories in which you have no interest.

[Futurepower(R)]

Please don't visit and comment on Slashdot discussions in which you have no interest.

I find that I am interested in only about one-twentieth of the articles on Slashdot. I was interested in this article, and was surprised to see people doing an anger trip over it.

Three points: 1) Roland does not have much chance of making money from his Slashdot articles. (See quote below.) 2) He puts a lot of work into his articles, which may be the reason they get accepted by Slashdot. 3) By complaining unreasonably, you have made him more famous. I was only vaguely aware of him until now, because of a few complaining comments. I didn't know he had a web site of his own until now.

Quote from a comment to an article objecting to Roland's articles, which are sometimes posted on Slashdot:

"I have not seen a SINGLE slashdot article attributed to Roland that requires travelling through his blog.

"Every single time I have seen his articles, the header always links to his sources. Only at the footer do you have the option to go to his site and see a more thorough writeup.

"I have never been forced to view Roland's site just to see the article.

"Compare and contrast with an article posted from the NY Times...."

Sweeping changes are due anyway

[Deanasc]

With the NIH insisting on open access to any papers published on research they've funded and a general call by scientists to open up free access to older journals we'll be seeing a change in the journal system of publishing very shortly. With electronic publishing of the text alongside the paper copies there's really no reason not to open peer review up to everyone who reads the article.

I think that any paper that meets a journals criteria should be put online and any interested party can vote as to the merits of the piece. The best and most interesting papers will become featured and the worse will be put to the back of the que. Papers that are so far advanced that their merits aren't recognized for years will have the option of becoming featured when they meet a threshold of other papers citing them. Papers that become seminal can be bound once each year for more perminant archiving. Nothing is lost in this system and no paper is rejected because one or two reviewers are jealous or don't quite understand the authors intent.

MOD PARENT DOWN; PARENT IS CONTENT-FREE

[Quattro Vezina]

Go back to anti-slash, asshat.

MOD PARENT DOWN FLAMEBAIT

[Quattro Vezina]

Please leave Slashdot, little troll.

What high editorial standards?

[Quattro Vezina]

When has /. ever claimed to have high editorial standards? It's a site where potentially interesting stuff get's posted, not some professional journalism outlet.

If anything's hurting Slashdot, it's the posters, especially all the annoying morons who seem to have crawled out of the woodwork for this article.

Get a life.

Re:What high editorial standards?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello Jayson Blair!

True!

[shpoffo]

An I even enjoyed this article a fair bit. Methinks too many /.ers have little better to do with their Monday morning then get their adrenaline going with some self-induced hypertension

.
-shpoffo

Those are mammatus clouds...

[jellisky]

That is the correct terminology. ;) (Storm chaser and atmospheric scientist... I do know that.)

And, yes, they are named as such since they look like boobs. ("Mammatus" comes from "mammory", the milk-producing glands in mammal breasts.)

They are thought to form as parcels of air drop after loading up with precipitation.
http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/mtr/cld/c ldtyp/oth/mm.rxml

And there's the random reply to the random post...

-Jellisky

Re:Those are mammatus clouds...

[KarMann]

Actually, "mammatus" and "mammary" both come from "mamma", Latin for "breast", rather than the one coming from the other.

Now let's hope the cycle is complete with this even more random reply....

Selection bias

[Rufus88]

People who are not interested in reading this researcher's "ad" are also not likely to be interested in taking the time to respond "no" to his survey.

Re:Don't join stories in which you have no interes

[deglr6328]

"He puts a lot of work into his articles, which may be the reason they get accepted by Slashdot."

Are you serious? Really? You honestly think that this is "a lot of work"? That is incredibly sad. Virtually the entire "article" consists of blocks of direcct quotations from press releases and other primary sources. Just like every single article he's ever posted. He then embelishes with a sprinkling of phony fluff commentary ("ohh tell me what YOU think!") merely to stave of accusations of plagairism (which he has been rightly accused of in the past).

"Please don't visit and comment on Slashdot discussions in which you have no interest."

So you don't see fit to take your own advice when it's YOU who has an opinion on something not pertaining directly to the article though right? Funny, that.

Yes, it is a lot of work...

[Futurepower(R)]

Yes, it is a lot of work, and so is Slashdot. How can you object to Roland, but not object to Slashdot?

I have an interest in Roland's article, and I am commenting because I don't want to see them discouraged.

RTFA

[jeremymiles]

"even though mesothelioma typically strikes only 1 to 2 people per million, Egilman said" That makes 250-500, in the USA.