3 ms·

I'm not sure why you mention off-topic GPT3. If you are trying to imply editors will accept GPT3 written papers somehow now or in the future, then that is compl

I'm not sure why you mention off-topic GPT3. If you are trying to imply editors will accept GPT3 written papers somehow now or in the future, then that is completely false, disingenuous, and not based on reality at all. There is no need to "imagine" the acceptance of GPT3 text as it cannot produce anything remotely close to what editors and reviewers will accept. I am surprised this possibility is even being raised, and makes me doubt the extent of your actual involvement in the field. SPIE has a different audience compared to basic research. There have been many highly cited papers from SPIE in my applied field. SPIE cooperates with OSA on the largest optics conferences for this very reason to cover applied and basic research. If you are coming from the basic research side, then I would not make a comment such as "being a PDF on a random website" as it really discredits this avenue when it is an honest and serious journal in the applied side. Aside from your reservations of industrial conflicts of the author of this paper, the journal is a fine avenue. Is it Nature? No, of course not. The editors themselves admit the very fact that its h-index cannot compete simply because it is a venue for applied research. But I would not go to the extreme of casting it as predatory or crank.

quietbritishjim 6y ago
> I'm not sure why you mention off-topic GPT3. I mentioned that because there are true scams where they accept literally any text (and payment!) and "publish" it on their online only "journal". I believe instances of GPT-like nonsense being "published" by those scams have been posted to HN in the past. I was just trying clarify that I was NOT levelling that accusation against SPIE, in my case my original comment had made it sound like I did. Your offense at me bringing it up, just to say that I'm not accusing SPIE of that, is frankly an overreaction. > SPIE has a different audience compared to basic research. ... it is a venue for applied research "Applied research" is not an excuse for articles that contain little or no technical content. I have seen several articles that are just a description of a demonstration that took place of a new product. That product undoubtably contains interesting technical innovations, but those innovations are not described in the article, at least not in any sort of detail that would benefit future practitioners. That is not a serious research article of any kind, including applied research. > There have been many highly cited papers from SPIE in my applied field. SPIE cooperates with OSA on the largest optics conferences ... First of all: Regardless of this whole SPIE discussion, I have seen some truely awful articles that have been cited a lot. Infamously, there was an article in a medical journal that reinvented the centuries-old (millenia-old maybe?) trapezium rule for estimating the area under a curve and was cited thousands of times. Citation count, I'm sure we can all agree, is not an indicator of quality, at least not by itself. But, as I said before: I can believe that interesting original articles with some real technical content are published to SPIE, particularly in its original field of optics. (The articles I'm referring to are more like products that include a camera or similar as a component, which technically falls under the field of "optics" but is rather far away from something more basic than a study of an individual type of lens, as in this article.) If you have seen articles like that then I'm not trying to invalidate your experience. But I have also seen papers very unlike that, as I said above, and I ask you not to invalidate my experience by claiming that those don't exist. Ultimately, the conclusion for a reader like me that hears "this paper was in SPIE" is that maybe it's like the dubious papers I've seen in the past. If SPIE publishes some serious papers and some rather less so, perhaps in different journals under the SPIE banner, then the blame is on them for tainting their previously good reputation by accepting lower quality articles.
- hellosire 6y ago
  I would be happy to see if you have any citations of dubious peer-reviewed articles or conference proceedings to the extent of the infamous Tsai integration paper. The idea that you overreach on the veracity of journals from the SPIE is just highly strange as you make overarching claims of dubiousness to the point of fraud...
  - quietbritishjim 6y ago
    > I would be happy to see if you have any citations of dubious peer-reviewed articles or conference proceedings to the extent of the infamous Tsai integration paper. I was making a general point that citation count is not a measure of article quality, not that there are any specific SPIE papers that are quite as bad as that example. There are plenty of other cases where low quality (but not as bad) articles have lots of citations but higher quality articles have fewer. I raised it because you used citation count as a proof of article quality in your previous comment, but I don't find it to be evidence of anything. (For the record, I just checked and the citation count is only 406 according to Google, not "thousands" as I claimed. The paper in question is "A Mathematical Model for the Determination of Total Area Under Glucose Tolerance and Other Metabolic Curves" by Mary M Tai.) As it happens I have seen articles in SPIE that do have a similar flavour: a well-established existing area of mathematics that has been re-"discovered" in a more limited form in another context without acknowledgement. But it's nowhere near as bad as the trapezium rule paper: in fairness, that area is something you wouldn't learn about even in a typical undergraduate mathematics degree, and the articles were not limited to SPIE journals (but I think it reflects equally badly on those other journals). I'm afraid I'm not willing to name names in this case, both to protect my own identity (it might give away my field) avoid mudslinging at a particular individual. > The idea that you overreach on the veracity of journals from the SPIE is just highly strange as you make overarching claims of dubiousness to the point of fraud... I'm sorry, I couldn't quite untangle this sentence. Are you saying that I'm approaching the point of fraud because of my accusations against SPIE? (The "as" in the middle doesn't quite fit with this interpretation.) I've told you, I'm going on genuine articles I've seen and even contributed to. I have no connection to SPIE or any other competing journal and no personal reason to discredit them. Do you have any personal connection to SPIE yourself?

quietbritishjim 6y ago

> I'm not sure why you mention off-topic GPT3. I mentioned that because there are true scams where they accept literally any text (and payment!) and "publish" it on their online only "journal". I believe instances of GPT-like nonsense being "published" by those scams have been posted to HN in the past. I was just trying clarify that I was NOT levelling that accusation against SPIE, in my case my original comment had made it sound like I did. Your offense at me bringing it up, just to say that I'm not accusing SPIE of that, is frankly an overreaction. > SPIE has a different audience compared to basic research. ... it is a venue for applied research "Applied research" is not an excuse for articles that contain little or no technical content. I have seen several articles that are just a description of a demonstration that took place of a new product. That product undoubtably contains interesting technical innovations, but those innovations are not described in the article, at least not in any sort of detail that would benefit future practitioners. That is not a serious research article of any kind, including applied research. > There have been many highly cited papers from SPIE in my applied field. SPIE cooperates with OSA on the largest optics conferences ... First of all: Regardless of this whole SPIE discussion, I have seen some truely awful articles that have been cited a lot. Infamously, there was an article in a medical journal that reinvented the centuries-old (millenia-old maybe?) trapezium rule for estimating the area under a curve and was cited thousands of times. Citation count, I'm sure we can all agree, is not an indicator of quality, at least not by itself. But, as I said before: I can believe that interesting original articles with some real technical content are published to SPIE, particularly in its original field of optics. (The articles I'm referring to are more like products that include a camera or similar as a component, which technically falls under the field of "optics" but is rather far away from something more basic than a study of an individual type of lens, as in this article.) If you have seen articles like that then I'm not trying to invalidate your experience. But I have also seen papers very unlike that, as I said above, and I ask you not to invalidate my experience by claiming that those don't exist. Ultimately, the conclusion for a reader like me that hears "this paper was in SPIE" is that maybe it's like the dubious papers I've seen in the past. If SPIE publishes some serious papers and some rather less so, perhaps in different journals under the SPIE banner, then the blame is on them for tainting their previously good reputation by accepting lower quality articles.

hellosire 6y ago
I would be happy to see if you have any citations of dubious peer-reviewed articles or conference proceedings to the extent of the infamous Tsai integration paper. The idea that you overreach on the veracity of journals from the SPIE is just highly strange as you make overarching claims of dubiousness to the point of fraud...
- quietbritishjim 6y ago
  > I would be happy to see if you have any citations of dubious peer-reviewed articles or conference proceedings to the extent of the infamous Tsai integration paper. I was making a general point that citation count is not a measure of article quality, not that there are any specific SPIE papers that are quite as bad as that example. There are plenty of other cases where low quality (but not as bad) articles have lots of citations but higher quality articles have fewer. I raised it because you used citation count as a proof of article quality in your previous comment, but I don't find it to be evidence of anything. (For the record, I just checked and the citation count is only 406 according to Google, not "thousands" as I claimed. The paper in question is "A Mathematical Model for the Determination of Total Area Under Glucose Tolerance and Other Metabolic Curves" by Mary M Tai.) As it happens I have seen articles in SPIE that do have a similar flavour: a well-established existing area of mathematics that has been re-"discovered" in a more limited form in another context without acknowledgement. But it's nowhere near as bad as the trapezium rule paper: in fairness, that area is something you wouldn't learn about even in a typical undergraduate mathematics degree, and the articles were not limited to SPIE journals (but I think it reflects equally badly on those other journals). I'm afraid I'm not willing to name names in this case, both to protect my own identity (it might give away my field) avoid mudslinging at a particular individual. > The idea that you overreach on the veracity of journals from the SPIE is just highly strange as you make overarching claims of dubiousness to the point of fraud... I'm sorry, I couldn't quite untangle this sentence. Are you saying that I'm approaching the point of fraud because of my accusations against SPIE? (The "as" in the middle doesn't quite fit with this interpretation.) I've told you, I'm going on genuine articles I've seen and even contributed to. I have no connection to SPIE or any other competing journal and no personal reason to discredit them. Do you have any personal connection to SPIE yourself?