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My understanding is that this is mainly affecting publishers that are widely known to publish low quality, mostly forgettable research. Like there’s thousands

My understanding is that this is mainly affecting publishers that are widely known to publish low quality, mostly forgettable research. Like there’s thousands of “machine learning” papers published in MDPI and Hindawi journals that are literally just a writeup of how the authors applied scikit-learn algorithms to a small dataset. No conclusions or advances in understanding are made. Consequently these are extremely easy to filter out as trash. I absolutely don’t condone or dismiss the problem, but its not yet a serious impediment to real research. It’s mostly self contained within this ecosystem of trash journals. Trash research doesn’t escape containment to contaminate more serious venues because it’s transparently and obviously trash and serious journals care about their reputation. So, I think its important not to overstate the consequences or reach of this problem. That’s not to say academic publishing doesn’t have problems, but I don’t think this kind of trash publishing is going to seriously impede progress. That said I would shut down all these people and their journals if I could

OmarShehata 3y ago
Interestingly, one of the comments on the article makes this exact point ("Is this actually harmful to the scientific community?" "No one in the real world of scientific progress is getting fooled by a Mad Libs paper in a Mad Libs conference proceeding.") The real harm here may be moreso outside of the scientific community. Consider why they are paying to get these articles published in the first place. I thought this was well articulated in another comment there: "These papers are the tools by which fraudsters advance up the acaddemic ladder. As a result, billions of public money get diverted to fund this fakers rather than actual science and scientists. On top of that, all these fake papers poison the waters and confuse decision makers and the public all over the world, resulting in bad policies that cause more harm."
- andy99 3y ago
  The issue is that the audience of legit scholarship is neither the public nor "decision makers" nor academic administrators. It's other researchers. The system works fine (more or less) for actual scholars working on advancing their fields. It's just that a scam industry has been built up for the benefit of the other various stakeholders who actually have no business relying on communications that are not meant for them.
- D13Fd 3y ago
  > These papers are the tools by which fraudsters advance up the acaddemic ladder. As a result, billions of public money get diverted to fund this fakers rather than actual science and scientists. That sounds pretty clearly harmful to the scientific community.
  - bell-cot 3y ago
    Reaction I: It'd be a piss-poor excuse for an academic department that could somehow fail to notice that a candidate's or employee's published works included such crap. Reaction II: Yeah, there probably are quite a few piss-poor academic departments in this world...
- InSteady 3y ago
  Probably just an incidental effect, but it also provides easy fodder for people who have a major incentive (political, economic) to undermine scientific research as an institution, and sow doubt about any and all research that is harmful to their agenda.
bowsamic 3y ago
I've definitely been asked to review physics papers in MDPI that are clearly high quality and worthy of better journals. It's not that easy to filter out
jampekka 3y ago
I find that it's a kind of public secret in academia that a paper being even in a "reputable" journal doesn't mean much, and trash is everywhere. The demands to publish and the ensuing volume are just way too high. If the system demands at least one paper (with novel exciting groundbreaking results) per year to keep a career going, an avalanche of bad papers is inevitable.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  What field of academia are you in?
wolverine876 3y ago
> My understanding What is your involvement? Author? Editor?
JPLeRouzic 3y ago
Please could you tell how you filter publications? (besides ignoring some publishers) Thanks
mike_hearn 3y ago
The problem varies dramatically by field and subfield. ML is by far not the worst affected. There are fields that get papers are published in "reputable" journals that are transparently nonsense, they get a large number of citations, and this happens all the time.

OmarShehata 3y ago

Interestingly, one of the comments on the article makes this exact point ("Is this actually harmful to the scientific community?" "No one in the real world of scientific progress is getting fooled by a Mad Libs paper in a Mad Libs conference proceeding.") The real harm here may be moreso outside of the scientific community. Consider why they are paying to get these articles published in the first place. I thought this was well articulated in another comment there: "These papers are the tools by which fraudsters advance up the acaddemic ladder. As a result, billions of public money get diverted to fund this fakers rather than actual science and scientists. On top of that, all these fake papers poison the waters and confuse decision makers and the public all over the world, resulting in bad policies that cause more harm."

andy99 3y ago
The issue is that the audience of legit scholarship is neither the public nor "decision makers" nor academic administrators. It's other researchers. The system works fine (more or less) for actual scholars working on advancing their fields. It's just that a scam industry has been built up for the benefit of the other various stakeholders who actually have no business relying on communications that are not meant for them.
D13Fd 3y ago
> These papers are the tools by which fraudsters advance up the acaddemic ladder. As a result, billions of public money get diverted to fund this fakers rather than actual science and scientists. That sounds pretty clearly harmful to the scientific community.
- bell-cot 3y ago
  Reaction I: It'd be a piss-poor excuse for an academic department that could somehow fail to notice that a candidate's or employee's published works included such crap. Reaction II: Yeah, there probably are quite a few piss-poor academic departments in this world...
InSteady 3y ago
Probably just an incidental effect, but it also provides easy fodder for people who have a major incentive (political, economic) to undermine scientific research as an institution, and sow doubt about any and all research that is harmful to their agenda.

bowsamic 3y ago

I've definitely been asked to review physics papers in MDPI that are clearly high quality and worthy of better journals. It's not that easy to filter out

jampekka 3y ago

I find that it's a kind of public secret in academia that a paper being even in a "reputable" journal doesn't mean much, and trash is everywhere. The demands to publish and the ensuing volume are just way too high. If the system demands at least one paper (with novel exciting groundbreaking results) per year to keep a career going, an avalanche of bad papers is inevitable.

wolverine876 3y ago
What field of academia are you in?

wolverine876 3y ago

> My understanding What is your involvement? Author? Editor?

JPLeRouzic 3y ago

Please could you tell how you filter publications? (besides ignoring some publishers) Thanks

mike_hearn 3y ago

The problem varies dramatically by field and subfield. ML is by far not the worst affected. There are fields that get papers are published in "reputable" journals that are transparently nonsense, they get a large number of citations, and this happens all the time.