6 ms·

The story behind this is here: https://scholarlyoa.com/bogus-journal-accepts-profanity-laced-anti-spam-paper/ https://scholarlyoa.com/bogus-journal-accepts-prof

The story behind this is here: https://scholarlyoa.com/bogus-journal-accepts-profanity-laced-anti-spam-paper/ https://scholarlyoa.com/bogus-journal-accepts-profanity-lace... “After receiving a spam email from the International Journal of Advanced Computer Technology, Dr. Peter Vamplew of Federation University Australia’s School of Engineering and Information Technology sent the anti-spam article as a reply to the spam email without any other message, expecting that they might open it and read it, but not that it would be considered for publication. To his surprise, the journal accepted the paper and sent him an acceptance email that had two PDF attachments. One was a formal statement of acceptance and the second was the reviewer report.”

Pinegulf 7y ago
Shame he did not pay. Wonder what the impact factor of the article would have been. (I would have cited it)
- dijit 7y ago
  I strongly suspect that it would not have really been published.
  - tduberne 7y ago
    I am pretty sure it would have been, as "published" here simply means uploading the pdf here: http://www.ijact.org/index.php/ijact http://www.ijact.org/index.php/ijact Having the papers there makes it look more like a "real" journal, and potentially makes the author decide to submit more in the future. I would even assume a lot of the authors "publishing" in such journals are perfectly aware of their quality, and do this just to increase their "peer-reviewed publications" stats. It is very difficult to separate those from legitimate journals on a publication list. For those not in academia: there are 100s of those journals. I get invitations to publish in such journals or conferences almost daily on my professional address. Some of them have the very same formatting as the ones in the article (same ugly fonts and colors).
glangdale 7y ago
There are so many stories like this. My favorite (although this one is very good) is that that a bunch of academics got together and pasted together some absolute nonsense (I assume this is from the era before SciGen) and submitted it to a conference. When it was accepted they revealed the hoax, and the conference admins claimed that it was because these academics were obviously very good, they figured the paper was just a placeholder and would be fixed up in the final version. The only problem was that the academics in question had used fake names on the submission and the affiliation of "The Austrian Naval Academy". (amusingly, there historically was an Austrian Naval Academy and an Austrian Navy, back during the Austro-Hungarian Empire period - Capt von Trapp of Sound of Music fame is a famous example of one of their officers)
- drfuchs 7y ago
  For the geographically-challenged: present-day Austria is land-locked, and thus has no call for a navy, let alone a naval academy.
  - have_faith 7y ago
    Why would that prevent them from having a small navy? Assuming some country is happy for them to pay to have a port somewhere. Although they don't it wouldn't surprise me much to learn that they did have one despite being land-locked.
    - michaelt 7y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navies_of_landlocked_countries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navies_of_landlocked_countries Bolivia has been landlocked since 1904, but has a navy with 5,000 personnel (patrolling the country's many large rivers and lakes) and... a naval academy! Which Peru grants access to the sea. Of course, you'll note Austria isn't on that list.
    - squarefoot 7y ago
      Many moons ago I reconnected with an old friend who moved to Switzerland years before; just imagine my face when he told me he was working for a Swiss shipowner:).
Jenz 7y ago
I would love to see the reviewer report.
- mcv 7y ago
  "The article makes a convincing argument that is supported by the data."
- kaybe 7y ago
  https://scholarlyoa.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/reviewer-form-1024x502.jpg https://scholarlyoa.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/reviewer-... I'm not sure whether that's the full report though.
  - mcv 7y ago
    The real review is better than my made-up review. The reviewer is probably intimately familiar with the problem described by the article's author.
  - TallGuyShort 7y ago
    If I was being spammed to review articles and saw this come through, I might be a little tempted to rubber-stamp it.
- doodpants 7y ago
  The article that modernerd linked to has links at the bottom, in the "Appendix". The reviewer report is here: https://scholarlyoa.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/review-form.pdf https://scholarlyoa.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/review-form....
  - jeltz 7y ago
    I love how everything other than the presentation is either Excellent or Very Good while the presentation is just Good.
mangatmodi 7y ago
Guess what? Ethics page is 404 - http://www.ijact.org/index.php/ijact/ethics http://www.ijact.org/index.php/ijact/ethics Intentional or not, it is an irony
- rahuldottech 7y ago
  Link to this is on the right sidebar, for those wondering: http://www.ijact.org/index.php/ijact/ http://www.ijact.org/index.php/ijact/
- TallGuyShort 7y ago
  What review process? http://www.ijact.org/index.php/ijact/reviewprocess http://www.ijact.org/index.php/ijact/reviewprocess

Pinegulf 7y ago

Shame he did not pay. Wonder what the impact factor of the article would have been. (I would have cited it)

dijit 7y ago
I strongly suspect that it would not have really been published.
- tduberne 7y ago
  I am pretty sure it would have been, as "published" here simply means uploading the pdf here: http://www.ijact.org/index.php/ijact http://www.ijact.org/index.php/ijact Having the papers there makes it look more like a "real" journal, and potentially makes the author decide to submit more in the future. I would even assume a lot of the authors "publishing" in such journals are perfectly aware of their quality, and do this just to increase their "peer-reviewed publications" stats. It is very difficult to separate those from legitimate journals on a publication list. For those not in academia: there are 100s of those journals. I get invitations to publish in such journals or conferences almost daily on my professional address. Some of them have the very same formatting as the ones in the article (same ugly fonts and colors).

glangdale 7y ago

There are so many stories like this. My favorite (although this one is very good) is that that a bunch of academics got together and pasted together some absolute nonsense (I assume this is from the era before SciGen) and submitted it to a conference. When it was accepted they revealed the hoax, and the conference admins claimed that it was because these academics were obviously very good, they figured the paper was just a placeholder and would be fixed up in the final version. The only problem was that the academics in question had used fake names on the submission and the affiliation of "The Austrian Naval Academy". (amusingly, there historically was an Austrian Naval Academy and an Austrian Navy, back during the Austro-Hungarian Empire period - Capt von Trapp of Sound of Music fame is a famous example of one of their officers)

drfuchs 7y ago
For the geographically-challenged: present-day Austria is land-locked, and thus has no call for a navy, let alone a naval academy.
- have_faith 7y ago
  Why would that prevent them from having a small navy? Assuming some country is happy for them to pay to have a port somewhere. Although they don't it wouldn't surprise me much to learn that they did have one despite being land-locked.
  - michaelt 7y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navies_of_landlocked_countries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navies_of_landlocked_countries Bolivia has been landlocked since 1904, but has a navy with 5,000 personnel (patrolling the country's many large rivers and lakes) and... a naval academy! Which Peru grants access to the sea. Of course, you'll note Austria isn't on that list.
  - squarefoot 7y ago
    Many moons ago I reconnected with an old friend who moved to Switzerland years before; just imagine my face when he told me he was working for a Swiss shipowner:).

Jenz 7y ago

I would love to see the reviewer report.

mcv 7y ago
"The article makes a convincing argument that is supported by the data."
kaybe 7y ago
https://scholarlyoa.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/reviewer-form-1024x502.jpg https://scholarlyoa.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/reviewer-... I'm not sure whether that's the full report though.
- mcv 7y ago
  The real review is better than my made-up review. The reviewer is probably intimately familiar with the problem described by the article's author.
- TallGuyShort 7y ago
  If I was being spammed to review articles and saw this come through, I might be a little tempted to rubber-stamp it.
doodpants 7y ago
The article that modernerd linked to has links at the bottom, in the "Appendix". The reviewer report is here: https://scholarlyoa.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/review-form.pdf https://scholarlyoa.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/review-form....
- jeltz 7y ago
  I love how everything other than the presentation is either Excellent or Very Good while the presentation is just Good.

mangatmodi 7y ago

Guess what? Ethics page is 404 - http://www.ijact.org/index.php/ijact/ethics http://www.ijact.org/index.php/ijact/ethics Intentional or not, it is an irony

rahuldottech 7y ago
Link to this is on the right sidebar, for those wondering: http://www.ijact.org/index.php/ijact/ http://www.ijact.org/index.php/ijact/
TallGuyShort 7y ago
What review process? http://www.ijact.org/index.php/ijact/reviewprocess http://www.ijact.org/index.php/ijact/reviewprocess