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Profanity-Laced Academic Paper Exposes Scam Journal
Frosty P writes: A scientific paper titled "Get Me Off Your F****** Mailing List" was actually accepted by the International Journal of Advanced Computer Technology. As reported at Vox and other web sites, the journal, despite its distinguished name, is a predatory open-access journal. These sorts of low-quality journals spam thousands of scientists, offering to publish their work for a fee. In 2005, computer scientists David Mazières and Eddie Kohler created this highly profane ten-page paper as a joke, to send in replying to unwanted conference invitations. It literally just contains that seven-word phrase over and over, along with a nice flow chart and scatter-plot graph. More recently, computer scientist Peter Vamplew sent it to the IJACT in response to spam from the journal, and the paper was automatically accepted with an anonymous reviewer rating it as "excellent," and requested a fee of $150. Over the years, the number of these predatory journals has exploded. Jeffrey Beall, a librarian at the University of Colorado, keeps an up-to-date list of them to help researchers avoid being taken in; it currently has 550 publishers and journals on it."
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Of course I didn't use the word "F******" in my submission, but I suppose Slashdot must be couth.
Anyway, here's a link to the actual paper (warning: PDF) - http://www.scs.stanford.edu/~d...
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It's no Chicken Chicken Chicken , but it'll do.
Over the years, the number of these predatory journals has exploded.
If the journal is the predator, who or what is the prey? Pray tell.
Mr. Beall's list has been criticized as being not neutral...
Not by Science Magazine... From Wikipedia:
In 2013, Science published the results of a "sting operation" in which a scientifically flawed spoof publication was submitted to open access publications.[11] Many accepted the manuscript, and a disproportionate number of the accepting journals were on Beall's list. The publication, entitled Who's Afraid of Peer Review?, stated that "The results show that Beall is good at spotting publishers with poor quality control: For the publishers on his list that completed the review process, 82% accepted the paper."[11] Beall agreed, saying that the author of the sting, John Bohannon, "basically found what I've been saying for years."
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
"The University of Siegen in Germany working in the research and development of an autonomous unmanned ground vehicle (DORIS) project as in figure 1. As it is still a work-in-progress, a problem has been identified in the de- signing and implement a speed control system for DORIS_1 and DORIS_2 where a mechanical transmission and Hydro- static transmission used. An electro hydraulic servo system developed for DORIS_3 [1]." They do not waste monies on grammar the editing.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
I wonder if this is where all the anti, and all the pro AGW "studies" are done
What I mean is has anyone actually sourced out all the sources on both sides of the isle? does one side use these shady journals to "prove" the other side wrong? Do both do it? or do the studies we get side come from mostly reputable sources
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
poison their databases with crapfloods of bogus documents much as the submitter did. One the pollution reaches a certain threshold, mentality will reach the dizzying heights of the anti-Torrent crowd who claim that Torrents are only used for pirating movies and the journal will make the list of "avoid this shithole, it's full of literal nonsense" sites.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Thank you for that! I haven't laughed like this at an academic paper in, well, a really blooming long time.
And as a bonus, I've given the folks here at the coffee shop something to stare at. :)
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Nice job. At first I thought the references at the end of the paper weren't used, but upon closer examination they were cited within the paper.
If I were in Academia, I'd be looking for the slightest excuse to cite this paper at every opportunity!
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
There are two problems with the situation, one is easy to solve and the other less so.
The first problem is that occasionally researchers (usually junior) will submit actual meaningful work to these journals, likely driven at least in part by the exceptionally low publication charge. Publishing in a top-tier journal is expensive, and even the reputable open-access journals (such as PLoS ONE) can easily be over $1000 to publish. As junior researchers don't have the larger budgets of their senior colleagues they may be tempted to try this route. The solution to this is of course to encourage these people to shy away from the "cheap" open access journals like this one and if need be seek out assistance in covering page costs in reputable journals instead.
The second problem is the volume of garbage traffic that these rags generate. Trying to auto-junk their email with spam filters is not necessarily wise as it could end up decreasing the overall signal-to-noise ratio of said filters and hence increase the false positive rate. These guys excel at hitting just the right mark of spaminess. You could of course try to just blacklist the from addresses but with the rate at which they register new domain names that is a losing battle as well. Then there is also the deluge of invitations to crappy conferences that they send out as well to untold thousands of unsuspecting victims. You can't really win this one, and they aren't breaking any laws either so you can't turn the authorities against them.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I think it unlikely that they'll simply ditch papers that don't get paid for (maybe they keep hold of them and wait till one hits the big time and file a vexatious copyright claim or something equally as likely but equally as improbable), which means that they have to be a. stored on a database and b. referred to in an abstract form somewhere, like an academic website or a nerds newsboard, to lend weight to whatever claim they think they might have.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Now they're going to put this esteemed journal out of business and their paper will never receive the sort of impact factor needed for tenure.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
So, you're telling me the $300 I paid to the Journal of Experimental Onanism to publish my findings was a waste of money?
Damn. I've already printed up my CV and that paper is at the top of my list of publications. I suppose I should have been suspicious when I saw that the editors that were assigned to peer review my paper were Jack Meihoff and Richard Gazinya.
You are welcome on my lawn.
As a reviewer, I would have rejected the paper because I don't see where either of the references given are cited in the text. However, they would get a point for being up-to-date in citing RFC2821 rather than RFC 821.
Obviously, they're using the advanced computer technology to do reviews for them.
Ezekiel 23:20
If you are assuming a completely new definition for the word "advanced" I agree. I picture poo flinging monkeys landing a steamer on a button for the submission process.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstrea...
Behold the Turbo Encabulator
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
There are sham politicians, sham journalists, sham non-open-access-journals, sham universities, sham scientists, even sham-poo. Why shouldn't there be sham-open-access-journals? What are these people trying to prove?
This includes blind review by three or more members of the international editorial review board
Possible "failure modes":
1. Blind review: The reviewers are blind, so as long as the paper passes the "sniff test" ...
...
2. International editorial review board: Their first, second, whatever languages aren't english
Obviously a scam, though I want to know - did he mange to get off their mailing list?
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
In other words, it's the old vanity press / subsidy press scam.
Or those "poetry contests" where you (and many other suckers) "win" and now have to shell out big bux for a book of crappy poetry that you couldn't pay people to read.
Of course, that's where their review process fails - even they can't pay a real editor to read the submissions. Hmm ... where have I heard that before ....
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
It took two computer scientists to write up this document? I fear for the future
The paper isn't mis-using religious concepts or entities or terminology for secular and negative purposes, it's using vulgar terms instead of more polite ones. People keep f******* mistaking the two concepts.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
/unsubscribe /unsubscribe
fucking
I know it is not the same but sounds like an ex of mine who submitted poetry. And of course the poetry was accepted, and you will want to buy this book of poetry for an outrageous price will you not?
Did not see the post right above mine. It is the same as that.... of course she did not believe me.
Or the who's who among american high school students... same concept.
Not that it would be enough to have an appreciable affect, but it would increase the impact factor of the journal. That would be contrary to the point of such papers.
Because, that's what SPAM is intended to do, only a fraction of a percentage of the people have to give them money (even if it's as a joke, opposite research or any reason whatsoever) for them to be profitable.
These sites are literally auto-generated for any field you can think of (I work in association with physicists, biologists and neurologists, they have at least a dozen journals across these fields). I get daily spams from at least 5 of them. The websites are identical (replacing the $field), the journals look identical and they're auto-generated. It is potentially a one-person operation having these half-wit professors publishing close to $3000/month/journal + advertising pages for what is an entirely electronic "journal".
There are similar sites offering help writing your papers, offering help getting NIH/NSF/whatever funding. A small team could easily lift close to $1M/month in a self-enclosed, self-propagating ecosystem of 'products and services'; everything from the creation to the publishing of an entire study.
The problem is not necessarily that these people are doing that (after all, it's a great idea to create an entirely fake ecosystem), the problem is that our public resources (in the form of government and tuition sourced grant money) are being used to publish these professors in fake, non-peer reviewed journals. Universities and government institutions actually accept these fake journals as 'credentials' because being published in a number of official-sounding journals trumps quality research for the beancounters.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Possible "failure modes":
1. Blind review: The reviewers are blind, so as long as the paper passes the "sniff test" ...
...
2. International editorial review board: Their first, second, whatever languages aren't english
Obviously a scam, though I want to know - did he mange to get off their mailing list?
You missed one.
3. The reviewers would appreciate it if the journal would stop mailing them papers without asking first.
And we also know that the GW "skeptic" crowd doesn't bother to send papers even to scam journals. Remember that the next time a skeptic claims the reason there are so few skeptic papers published is because they get rejected.
Not by Science Mag, but by others. Had you included the link to your cited text this would have become apparent: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J... Also I have sent my draft in to a journal on Mr. Beall's list and received a reasonable, although not super-informed response, so I let the text be published in that journal. Of course expensive western journals and editorials would prefer if everyone only accepted them and was willing to continue financing their own scheme. If one open access journal has published crap, it is proof that this particular journal doesn't have the right procedures in place, not that this is the case for all open access journals, or even all open access journals from India or from the third world. It seems like an extension of cultural and economic imperialism to insist on first world journals being the only thing valid.
Check out the list of reasons for why certain publishers are on the list: http://scholarlyoa.com/other-p... They include things such as: "Very few editorial board members from the west despite claiming to be International'" "Much of the authors’ guidelines is copied from other sites." "The journal has a very broad coverage to attract more author fees, and there are already many journals with a similar coverage — there is no authentic need for this new journal. It’s just being done for the profit." "There no indication of the journal’s digital preservation policies." Just to mention a few.
Not to burst your bubble ... O what the hell.
Peer-Reviewed Survey Finds Majority Of Scientists Skeptical Of Global Warming Crisis
Report: 1350+ Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skeptic Arguments Against Man-Made Global Warming Alarm
No reason to mention the pro-AGW impending doom papers, no one doubts their existence.
My thoughts -- Yes, some GW is related to CO2, at least some fraction of the additional CO2 is due to man's activity, in particular burning of carbon fuels. It may even be a serious problem. BTW, what is the optimal level of CO2 anyway, be sure to show your work.
You should dig a little deeper.
For the first link:
- The survey was made only among geo-scientists and engineers in the province of Alberta, Canada (where the oil industry is a major employer), it's a world wide survey of experts in climate.
- The actual results of the survey were "27.4% believe it is caused by primarily natural factors (natural variation, volcanoes, sunspots, lithosphere motions, etc.), 25.7% believe it is caused by primarily human factors (burning fossil fuels, changing land use, enhanced water evaporation due to irrigation), and 45.2% believe that climate change is caused by both human and natural factors".
Put simply, the article you linked in it outright lying.
There are prefectly respectable climate science journals. The really top articles might even find their way into "nature" or "science".
Simply making up lies isn't going to bring anyone to your cause, but, I do admit it is the denialist way, so that fits.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
IJACT'ed from the community of honorable journals?
$x = ($x * 10) % 10 >= 5 ? 1 + int $x : int $x
While the scientific merits of their approach are indeed somewhat questionable, their article addresses a topic of widespread public interest and they make a valid point. I suppose it has entered the journal not under the category "original research" but rather under "discussion and critical commentaries".
http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scig...
SCIgen, an automatic CS paper generator, which got several "authors" accepted to talk at conferences !
Not that it would be enough to have an appreciable affect, but it would increase the impact factor of the journal. That would be contrary to the point of such papers.
Actually no. It would only show (one more time) that the IF is no useful measure. While this may not be the original intent of the paper, it would be a nice addition.
Check out the list of reasons for why certain publishers are on the list...
Sounds reasonable to me.
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I posted a comment on Computer World web site in the '90s, and was sent two books to review. Got to keep the books.
Learn to love Alaska
I find it more disturbing that these so-called "Australians" achieved a profanity density as low as 0.14!
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
well, they do say "blind review"
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.