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Profanity-Laced Academic Paper Exposes Scam Journal

Posted by Soulskill on from the start-building-your-resume dept.

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."

10 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. The Source Document by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 4, Informative

    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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    1. Re:The Source Document by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 2

      And dig! They're afraid to post your full nick...

      Which can be confusing since "Frosty Piss" is my actual name that I use when publishing all my papers, but "Frosty P" is the name I use when I'm scratching rare vinyl at the clubs - I know most dj's just queue it up in their MacBooks, but I'm old school.

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    2. Re:The Source Document by phantomfive · · Score: 2

      Nice flowchart. I like how diagrams the structure clearly. With such clean diagrams, I understand why it got accepted.

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      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    3. Re:The Source Document by Wootery · · Score: 2

      You realise Slashdot accounts aren't issued at birth, right?

  2. Not bad, but... by Blrfl · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's no Chicken Chicken Chicken , but it'll do.

    1. Re:Not bad, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Thanks. I had never read the actual paper before, only seen the presentation.

  3. Re:Beall's list not neutral by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 3, Informative

    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."

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  4. Re:Random sample from one paper by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Also note the "Editorial Board" for this illustrious publication: http://www.ijact.org/eb.htm

    I suspect that this "journal" not only provides these guys with extra income, but also serves publication destination for their own dubious science papers.

    Of course what keeps these "journals" in business is the fever pitch that academics must publish just to stay relevant in their professional / social strata (and who cares what they publish as long as they do), and their quest for tenure...

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  5. Re:They must have some really low standards by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 4, Funny
    And there's your explanation:

    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?

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  6. Re:They must have some really low standards by Minwee · · Score: 2

    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.