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Could someone with more familiarity in this area explain, what do the 'perpetrators' (for lack of better word) gain out of generating and publishing nonsensical

Could someone with more familiarity in this area explain, what do the 'perpetrators' (for lack of better word) gain out of generating and publishing nonsensical (farkaktical?) papers?

civilized 5y ago
It's about juicing the publication metrics by which academics are evaluated these days, especially in developing countries with less mature research cultures and heavy publish-or-perish pressures. It's especially effective if you have co-conspirators who will cite your nonsense papers. So long as you publish and get cited, the metrics don't care about the content of your papers.
- ahartmetz 5y ago
  This idiotic superficiality in disciplines that are supposed to be about deep thinking would be funny if it wasn't so destructive...
  - PeterisP 5y ago
    The measurement requirements come from politicians and funding agencies, and "what you measure is what you'll get" is a truism in organizational behavior.
    - ahartmetz 5y ago
      I figure as much. But still.
aaron695 5y ago
It's hard to tell because we don't seem to have any institutions private of public who will investigate things anymore. For instance someone could email the people who's names are on the paper and ask. But a good guess would be the people who's names are on the paper paid someone to get them published papers. The person paid, outsourced it to different people, also paid. That's one possibility. Researchers often get paid for published work. Is it an academic getting a yearly bonus or a student needing to just pass their degree and moving on? This is two very different things. How were they generated, was it translation software, Markov Chains, GPT. The researchers were not in Geosciences, this is why the starkly different topics. Mashing the researchers field and Geosciences. But this makes it worse, it needs to be basket ball and Geosciences to get caught?
webmaven 5y ago
> Could someone with more familiarity in this area explain, what do the 'perpetrators' (for lack of better word) gain out of generating and publishing nonsensical (farkaktical?) papers? There are circumstances where getting a paper published is a prerequisite for something else (graduating, getting hired, receiving a bonus or promotion, etc.). The general shape of the issue is similar to how and why nonsensical or trivial patents are conceived, submitted, and granted, except that the attack surface is ginormous by comparison.

Could someone with more familiarity in this area explain, what do the 'perpetrators' (for lack of better word) gain out of generating and publishing nonsensical (farkaktical?) papers?

civilized 5y ago

It's about juicing the publication metrics by which academics are evaluated these days, especially in developing countries with less mature research cultures and heavy publish-or-perish pressures. It's especially effective if you have co-conspirators who will cite your nonsense papers. So long as you publish and get cited, the metrics don't care about the content of your papers.

ahartmetz 5y ago
This idiotic superficiality in disciplines that are supposed to be about deep thinking would be funny if it wasn't so destructive...
- PeterisP 5y ago
  The measurement requirements come from politicians and funding agencies, and "what you measure is what you'll get" is a truism in organizational behavior.
  - ahartmetz 5y ago
    I figure as much. But still.

aaron695 5y ago

It's hard to tell because we don't seem to have any institutions private of public who will investigate things anymore. For instance someone could email the people who's names are on the paper and ask. But a good guess would be the people who's names are on the paper paid someone to get them published papers. The person paid, outsourced it to different people, also paid. That's one possibility. Researchers often get paid for published work. Is it an academic getting a yearly bonus or a student needing to just pass their degree and moving on? This is two very different things. How were they generated, was it translation software, Markov Chains, GPT. The researchers were not in Geosciences, this is why the starkly different topics. Mashing the researchers field and Geosciences. But this makes it worse, it needs to be basket ball and Geosciences to get caught?

webmaven 5y ago

> Could someone with more familiarity in this area explain, what do the 'perpetrators' (for lack of better word) gain out of generating and publishing nonsensical (farkaktical?) papers? There are circumstances where getting a paper published is a prerequisite for something else (graduating, getting hired, receiving a bonus or promotion, etc.). The general shape of the issue is similar to how and why nonsensical or trivial patents are conceived, submitted, and granted, except that the attack surface is ginormous by comparison.