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I'm sorry, I only read the abstract[1] but this is excellently written, in a way that only people with real scientific understanding are able to write. This is

I'm sorry, I only read the abstract[1] but this is excellently written, in a way that only people with real scientific understanding are able to write. This isn't a "hoax", it's simply unconscionable on the part of the author. Let me translate this to terms people here might understand. This is like writing an O'Reilly book entitled "Essential System Administration In Client-Side Javascript" detailing a cookbook of the most common techniques you would want to use to do local system administration from Angular, React, Meteor/Ember, etc, with special attention to the pitfalls of identifying whether the local system is a Windows,Mac, Linux, a mobile browser, tablet, etc, and listing the various ways you can set up the local user's device to your own liking. Where it crosses the line is if it's written in a highly informative way without any indication WHATSOEVER of being satire. Local system administration from javascript frameworks doesn't exist. It's not a thing. You couldn't so much as set the time. But when you write with authority on how to do that and more, suddenly it does exist. What's more, it will be interesting and useful. If you write with authority and an overview of the subject, in the way done here (it starts by identifying the scope of the issue - the very first words of the abstract are "Uromycitisis is a rare but serious condition that affects over 2,000 mostly adult men and women in the United States each year". From the moment you've written those words -- you even say who it affects and the exceptions, since it affects adults but mostly adults -- you are now an expert and you're not writing a satire or hoax: you're writing fraud. It would be as if I began the above with: "Web-based administration of local devices with a standard browser serving as the remote administration client is a small but growing choice of hundreds of large companies with 5,000-50,000+ employees. Its advantages include leveraging development practices that may already be familiar, web standards, regular security upgrades from the major browsers, centralized distribution of small updates while leveraging the security mechanisms (such as HTTPS and signed certificates) already present in the browser, and cross-platform availability across many devices. Simply put, System Administration in client-side javascript is the closest you can come to fully controlling your user's devices without administrative tools at all. While it has important limitations, such as being unable to repartition hard-drives or install a standard image while the operating system is running, in other respects it enables all of the power of many administrative tools without many of the downsides. In this book we will cover some of the basic functions you may want to do, such as applying security updates, installing or removing software, creating user accounts and setting their privileges, and, in the case of Windows computers, setting up roaming profiles. Let's get started." Is that a hoax? No, it's more like simple fraud. (Our author invented a research institution, created fake gmail accounts, etc.) Sorry. I don't support the author in how they went about this. It would be different if what I wrote was hilarious - such as bemoaning that for the moment Apple Watches unfortunately do not support a standard browser, so you will have to break into them by finding and applying zero days for the iPhone, which are unfortunately patched regularly; a list of Russian and Chinese sources is contained in Appendix 1, and you can usually ask for a sample while promising bitcoins - but is the above paragraph I wrote hilarious? No. It's not hilarious and that means it's not okay. [1] direct link to PDF: http://www.the-scientist.com/images/Opinion/2017/UNOAJ-04-00132.pdf http://www.the-scientist.com/images/Opinion/2017/UNOAJ-04-00...

beager 10y ago
Do you believe the author would have been able to expose the lazy and dishonest behavior of a journal like this with a paper that was plainly satirical to a layperson? It has to walk the line in a way to show that the journal purports to contain real papers, but that the staff has no capacity or interest in the veracity of its content, just making money. The fact that the author published the expose gives me everything I'd need to know about how conscionable it is.
- logicallee 10y ago
  He could have written it poorly, though. That abstract is excellently-written. It's better-written than the hoax I put into HN terms with my paragraph above -- my paragraph (by contrast) is not that well-written: its sentences are long and it goes on a few asides. His abstract is a model of clear writing and deserves to be published without question. Such a submission is going too far.
elihu 10y ago
Yeah, that was more or less my impression. The implication that the reviewers should have caught on because it was a reference to a well-known Seinfeld episode is particularly silly. Many people who grew up in the United States haven't watched Seinfeld. I definitely would not have gotten the joke, and I certainly wouldn't expect a random journal reviewer (who could be from anywhere) to be intimately familiar with American popular culture, and I wouldn't expect them to google the author's name to figure out if they're the target of a practical joke. Reviewers usually have to assume on some level that those who submit articles aren't lying. They can't verify every claim. Maybe a case could be made that the reviewers in this case didn't do enough due diligence, but just because they didn't get the joke doesn't mean they're doing a bad job.
- logicallee 10y ago
  yes, thanks. Especially given that he introduces the prevalence as being 2,000 people nationwide. (That is beyond rare. Albinism for example - extremely rare - is 5 people per 100,000 in the United States. 2,000 people in the whole country is 0.62 per 100,000.) So when recording such an incredibly rare disease it would be normal for no one but, for example, the sole specialist in the entire country to have even heard about it. It would be different if he had reported that 2 million people are effected. I don't like the whole thing. It's even worse because the report deserves to be published. As written (though I didn't read beyond the abstract and what he wrote about it), it deserves publication. This isn't like this other hoax, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair -- "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" which on its face does not deserve to be published. I would publish this paper, and more than that, I would argue that papers like this must be published despite not finding anything about it. Integrity is important. Requiring the standard of scholarship to be raised to "integrity isn't enough. If I can't verify the scholarship independently then I would rather shut out exemplary papers than allow frauds through" is not going to benefit science in the long term. Many important researchers did not come with ready-made citations. When Einstein published four groundbreaking works in the Annals of Physics[1] that tore apart the very foundations of space, time, mass, and energy, would someone Googling have found that it almost certainly wasn't a hoax? At some point you just have to believe the papers, and prefer to believe and publish Einstein on the strength of what he's written than to deny him on the strength of a paucity of corroboration. This exercise doesn't help anyone. The paper is just too well-written. [1] see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_Mirabilis_papers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_Mirabilis_papers

beager 10y ago

Do you believe the author would have been able to expose the lazy and dishonest behavior of a journal like this with a paper that was plainly satirical to a layperson? It has to walk the line in a way to show that the journal purports to contain real papers, but that the staff has no capacity or interest in the veracity of its content, just making money. The fact that the author published the expose gives me everything I'd need to know about how conscionable it is.

logicallee 10y ago
He could have written it poorly, though. That abstract is excellently-written. It's better-written than the hoax I put into HN terms with my paragraph above -- my paragraph (by contrast) is not that well-written: its sentences are long and it goes on a few asides. His abstract is a model of clear writing and deserves to be published without question. Such a submission is going too far.

elihu 10y ago

Yeah, that was more or less my impression. The implication that the reviewers should have caught on because it was a reference to a well-known Seinfeld episode is particularly silly. Many people who grew up in the United States haven't watched Seinfeld. I definitely would not have gotten the joke, and I certainly wouldn't expect a random journal reviewer (who could be from anywhere) to be intimately familiar with American popular culture, and I wouldn't expect them to google the author's name to figure out if they're the target of a practical joke. Reviewers usually have to assume on some level that those who submit articles aren't lying. They can't verify every claim. Maybe a case could be made that the reviewers in this case didn't do enough due diligence, but just because they didn't get the joke doesn't mean they're doing a bad job.

logicallee 10y ago
yes, thanks. Especially given that he introduces the prevalence as being 2,000 people nationwide. (That is beyond rare. Albinism for example - extremely rare - is 5 people per 100,000 in the United States. 2,000 people in the whole country is 0.62 per 100,000.) So when recording such an incredibly rare disease it would be normal for no one but, for example, the sole specialist in the entire country to have even heard about it. It would be different if he had reported that 2 million people are effected. I don't like the whole thing. It's even worse because the report deserves to be published. As written (though I didn't read beyond the abstract and what he wrote about it), it deserves publication. This isn't like this other hoax, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair -- "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" which on its face does not deserve to be published. I would publish this paper, and more than that, I would argue that papers like this must be published despite not finding anything about it. Integrity is important. Requiring the standard of scholarship to be raised to "integrity isn't enough. If I can't verify the scholarship independently then I would rather shut out exemplary papers than allow frauds through" is not going to benefit science in the long term. Many important researchers did not come with ready-made citations. When Einstein published four groundbreaking works in the Annals of Physics[1] that tore apart the very foundations of space, time, mass, and energy, would someone Googling have found that it almost certainly wasn't a hoax? At some point you just have to believe the papers, and prefer to believe and publish Einstein on the strength of what he's written than to deny him on the strength of a paucity of corroboration. This exercise doesn't help anyone. The paper is just too well-written. [1] see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_Mirabilis_papers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_Mirabilis_papers