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Conferences have been author-paid well before OA came along, and predatory practices have been tested on them ever since. I am not aware of good sources on that, though. -- Daniel Mietchen - WiR/OS (talk) 18:59, 2 May 2013 (UTC) Copied here from the sandbox talk page by 20:14, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
Hi DM, I have taken the liberty of copying your comment here. I have also heard about these, and I think they were mentioned in the recent NYT article. I'll work it in soon if no one beats me to it. Cheers, a13ean (talk) 20:12, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
The term "Predatory Open-Access Publisher" is challenged
Beall uses the term "predatory“ for selected publishers. This has been accepted by many people apparently without reflection while others are irritated.
Dictionary definition[1]:
predatory (adjective): wrongly harming or using others for pleasure or profit
Lars Bjoernshauge (from http://www.doaj.org) writes on page 4 of a presentation "About questionable publishers"[2]
A predatory publisher can then be described as a publisher
who intends to injure or exploit others for personal gain or profit.
Not only publishers on Beall’s list work for profit, but also many
OA publishers not on Beall’s list,
subscription based publishers not on Beall’s list.
On the other hand, there are prosperous publishers on Beall’s list having published many papers (with or without APCs) without noise from authors about being harmed.
(Compare with page 5 of "About questionable publishers").
Beall defines “Predatory Open-Access Publisher“ only implicitly in[3].
E.g. Criteria 1 is: “The publisher’s owner is identified as the editor of all the journals published by the organization.“
This is clearly not acceptable in publishing, but it is not clear, why this can be set equal to „wrongly harming or using others for pleasure or profit“ or the „intend to injure or exploit others for personal gain or profit”. The same can be said about all of Beall’s criteria that follow.
Beall’s List for which he has applied his criteria is called
„Potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers“[4]
Apparently, Beall himself backs off from his exaggerated term. No wonder, Bjoernshauge proposes a more objective term in his presentation. It is the term “questionable publishers".
There may be an explanation for Beall’s choice of wording (Bjoernshauge, page 15 of "About questionable publishers"):
Beall ... explicitly dislike[s] OA
... operates as prosecutor, judge and jury
... [shows] ignorance
... Beal: "Gold OA means charging APC's".
The Wikipedia article should reflect the controversy about the term “predatory” and should write only about so-called predatory publishing.31.19.204.50 (talk) 22:25, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
Wikipedia articles rely on published sources. If you are proposing an edit, please identify the sources you would cite to support the statement of the controversy. Also you don't seem to have looked closely at what Beall has published. He clearly distinguishes a list of characteristics to distinguish predatory from bona fide publishers, even among those using the "gold" model. I've invited him by email to join this discussion. LeadSongDogcome howl! 16:58, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
Not very surprising: he has published several papers about this, there have been multiple newspaper reports, and there is his blog. Sources galore. --Randykitty (talk) 20:32, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
is it okay to tag several journals/publishers in wikipedia as predatory based on only one man's opinion? Fgnievinski (talk) 19:34, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
If we take Beall's list as a primary source, then it'd require a second and secondary source specifically mentioning the journal or publisher name to make the predatory adjective verifiable, wouldn't it? See WP:WPNOTRS, WP:UNDUE. Fgnievinski (talk) 21:36, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
See vacuous truth. If we take any false thing to be true, absolutely any logical conclusion or any self-contradicting set of logical conclusions can follow from that. Beall's list is clearly secondary. The primary sources in this case are the documents and publications of the publishers in question. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:42, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
Jeffrey Beall is the primary academic voice associated with criticism of predatory open access publishing. His views, though somewhat controversial in some circles, are hardly fringe. In fact, in the scientific field I work in, Beall's criticisms are highly regarded and mainstream. If Beall includes a specific publisher on his list, I think it is a notable opinion and probably worth mentioning in a Wikipedia article about that publisher. I think there is no risk that Wikipedia would liable for defamation if an article discusses Beall's opinions. -- Ed (Edgar181) 23:41, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
I'd be more comfortable if there were more than a single list of questionable journals/publishers. Any one individual makes mistakes. Although I am grateful for Beall's service, there is not much transparency in his process. There is a list of criteria, but there's no spreadsheet showing how each venue fares. After all, predatory-ness is a matter of degree, there's a gray area, and where does he draw the line? What if there are "false convictions"? Fgnievinski (talk) 00:15, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
What do your personal qualms about Beall have to do with this article? --JBL (talk) 00:51, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
Certainly it would be better if there were additional sources/rating systems to go to and if Beall was more open about his methodologies--but I agree that Beall's lists are nonetheless widely respected and widely reported on and should be included on wikipedia. I find them personally valuable for evaluating whether to consider doing peer-review work for a journal I've never heard of. --Pengortm (talk) 00:56, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
Anyways, I've made a couple of well-sourced edits which bring the issue to a more neutral point of view. If you care about the subject, hopefully one day Beall will make his blacklist more transparent, or DOAJ's new whitelist will become an adequate replacement. Fgnievinski (talk) 01:26, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
You read again: what do your personal qualms [about Beall's transparency] have to do with this article?
Although this discussion seems to have little to do with anything substantive about this or other articles, your actual edits to this article today have been certainly an improvement! --JBL (talk) 02:00, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
Maybe not a fringe theory, but a perspective that demands only its due weight. I feel that any mentions of current or previous inclusion on Beall's list must be accompanied or balanced by additional reliable sources, either supportive or contrary, in the essence of fairly representing all significant views in proportion to their frequency (as required by Wikipedia's neutrality policy), and Beall's opinions should almost never be mentioned unaccompanied in the lead, if at all (see MDPI for a very unbalanced lead). It might also also be clarified upon mention that Beall's list and methods themselves are subject to criticism (see Investigating journals: The dark side of publishing). Articles like Index Copernicus, and World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology that only cite Beall should be considered especially unbalanced. I recently embarked upon an expansion of Hindawi Publishing Corporation because I felt the previous version gave undue coverage to Beall and scantly anything on the company itself. It is much easier to report that a journal or publishing company has been on the list (openly posted on a blog) than to build a balanced article that puts criticism in perspective to all other reporting. I realize many Wiki articles on academic journals are bare-bone stubs that merely indicate existence, and for this reason alone, great care should be taken to ensure that any expansion occurs along the the policies of due and undue weight. --Animalparty-- (talk) 01:29, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
Indeed, even Beall explicitly calls it "potential, possible or probable" predatory. Then in wikipedia we take the shortcut and just say "Bell called it predatory". E.g., in MDPI: "It is considered a predatory open access publishing company ... by Jeffrey Beall." Therefore, I propose the word "alleged" be inserted before "predatory" in wikipedia articles linking to this page. It has a much more exact connotation than "considered". These are serious accusations which should not be taken lightly! Fgnievinski (talk) 01:42, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
Another way to reduce any claims of fringe theories and to increase balance is to introduce more perspectives on "predatory publishing". For instance, this Nature piece describes con-artists who dupe scientists by posing as legitimate journals, and Beall is not even mentioned. Although it's debatable weather it should be considered "predatory publishing" (the author does not use the term), it's fodder for a larger, expansive article.--Animalparty-- (talk) 03:52, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
See hijacked journal. Whereas predatory publishing is perfectly legal, this is obviously illegal. --Randykitty (talk) 09:50, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
authoritative or subjective?
I'd like to call Beall's list "subjective" -- your thoughts? Fgnievinski (talk) 20:13, 28 November 2014 (UTC)
I think it is perfectly accurate to say that Beall set forth criteria without your weasel-worded modifiers like "subjective" that seem intended purely to discredit those criteria. We are not saying that the criteria are universally accepted or the only possible criteria or the objective truth or even a good set of criteria (that would be equally editorializing) but we should allow readers to judge the criteria for themselves rather than inserting our own judgements of them. Also, if we're following the "D" phase of WP:BRD, why are you still edit-warring to get your version into the article after the "R" phase? —David Eppstein (talk) 20:18, 28 November 2014 (UTC)
I've picked up from your revert of Lawsonstu. You mention delegitimisation, so your tacit assumption is that legitimacy has already been conferred. Not so fast! This is a one man's list, run by a self-appointed individual, with no committee oversight. To say that "Beall sets forth the criteria" will likely be misread as "Beall sets forth THE [authoritative] criteria", which is absolutely incongruent with reality. Fgnievinski (talk) 20:39, 28 November 2014 (UTC)
You appear either not to have read my comment, or to have completely misread it, because your interpretation of what I mean is exactly the opposite of what I actually mean. I don't think we should be pushing a viewpoint that delegitimizes Beall's criteria, but neither do I think we should be pushing a viewpoint that they are authoritative. They are criteria. Beall put them forth. That is what the article already says. Any qualifier on that is inserting an editorial point of view that is inappropriate here. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:13, 28 November 2014 (UTC)
I concur with David here. The introduction of the "subjective" qualifier is unnecessary and indeed serves to inappropriately discredit the list to the reader. -- Ed (Edgar181) 00:55, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
Here's another one, about the lack of transparency: Beall doesn't disclose how each journal/publisher fares along each of his criteria. We might know what questions he makes but we don't know what answers he comes up with. It is also unclear how the individual criteria are weighted to come up with a final classification -- where to draw the line between predatory or not. Without objective rating scales, an explicit aggregating formula, and a definite cutoff value, it is difficult to replicate Beall's list independently, thus making it a subjective exercise. Fgnievinski (talk) 20:52, 28 November 2014 (UTC)
There's lots of independent reliable sources about the list. I don't see that any significant portion describe the list in this manner. Making up arguments to support adding this caveat is just WP:OR. a13ean (talk) 21:14, 28 November 2014 (UTC)
Wikipedia:You don't need to cite that the sky is blue You go to Beall's website, try to find out how each journal/publisher fares with regard to his criteria, or how many fails does it take to call a journal/publisher predatory. This information is not disclosed. How would Wikipedia source such self-evident claims? (Good-faith question here.) Fgnievinski (talk) 23:47, 28 November 2014 (UTC)
Yet another one: "I agree, the criteria I use are chiefly subjective. I’ve never claimed they were objective" (Beall's own words). So we all agree it is not authoritative, but the Wikipedia article cannot say so. Uh? Fgnievinski (talk) 18:17, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
Beall's blog is widely regarded as authorative (just as he himself is regarded as an authority). If it weren't, then there would be no need for all these bottom-feeding "publishers" to be all up in arms. Can you show me a publisher or journal from his list where it has been unequivocally shown that Beall was wrong about them? --Randykitty (talk) 20:36, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
@Randykitty: Honestly, I can't. I don't cross-check Beall's list myself. No one does, actually. All we have left is to trust he's doing it well. I'm not comfortable with Wikipedia underwriting such practice. Trust but Verify, no? Fgnievinski (talk) 00:42, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
What you personally are comfortable with continues to be irrelevant to anything. Please stop creating endless threads whose only purpose is to voice your dislike of Beall. --JBL (talk) 03:54, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
@Joel B. Lewis: We're all voicing one's own opinion here. The fact that I use the "I" pronoun just makes it more apparent. Since you cared to reply, and for a second time used off-putting language, let me ask you to please take a moment and consider if such attitude contribute to the retention or the loss of Wikipedia editors. Wikipedia:No personal attacks. Fgnievinski (talk) 18:42, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
You're being a bit harsh on Joel here. I found his comment not that negaitve at all. And let me ask you to please take a moment and consider if opening a multitude of threads at different locations on the same subject full of repetitive arguments contributes to the retention or the loss of Wikipedia editors. --Randykitty (talk) 18:54, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
After taking a WP:WikiBreak, let me say I'm sorry if I came across as being disruptive; I'll try and be more considerate. Fgnievinski (talk) 03:23, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
Now answering Randykitty's original question, I just came across this case: Hindawi Publishing Corporation#Beall's list -- in 2010, you'd be mislead to call Hindawi "bottom-feeding 'publishers'", which now after Beall's retraction, is clearly unfair! Fgnievinski (talk) 03:23, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
I'm not sure that the word "retraction" is at its place here. In addition, I found it positive, not negative, that Beall adjusts his list when more evidence becomes available. Hindawi used to spam academics in a way very similar to that of predatory publishers. In addition, they employ a highly unusual publishing model (no editor-in-chief). That Beall originally included them on his list was not too surprising and it makes his list more believable that he removed them after more evidence was obtained and reviewed. Thank you also for adding the South African reference, which shows that this list is being regarded as authoritative by the SA dept. of education and ProQuest. --Randykitty (talk) 13:54, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
the genie is out of the bottle
Please weigh in here: Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources#List of scammy academic journals: "Hey guys - I just came across this list (...) Is there anywhere on a policy or resource page that it would be good to link it?" Now it's a Wikipedia guideline! So much for "allow readers to judge the criteria for themselves"... Fgnievinski (talk) 00:21, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
I think it's perfectly consistent to believe that *our public-facing Wikipedia article* on Beall's list should allow readers to judge for themselves, while *in our own Wikipedia editing practice* we should treat the listed journals, for which we have some reason to believe that proper peer-review doesn't happen, as unreliable. (I also think that we should mention being listed on Beall's list whenever we happen to have an article on a journal or publisher on that list, but in most instances I've seen of this the better solution is to not have an article, because most of these are not independently notable per WP:NJournals.) —David Eppstein (talk) 04:40, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
I'm too tired of making this argument to weigh in again, but I'm just going to say that I wholeheartedly agree with User:Fgnievinski's concerns with Beall's list. If we're going to discuss subjectivity, I'd recommend reading Wayne Bivens-Tatum's article which helps reveal Bealls's own prejudices and distaste for open access, which in my view discredits his reasons for maintaining the list in the first place. - Lawsonstu (talk) 17:41, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
In Wikipedia articles about publishers/journals that are alleged predatory, we should rely only in allegations published in peer-reviewed literature (Beall authored several of such articles, check google scholar). Expert-authored blogs should be cited with discretion (WP:SELFPUBLISH). Even one false accusation would be too many, and who knows how many border cases exist -- I wish it was all black-and-white, predatory or not. Fgnievinski (talk)
SELFPUBLISH also says "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications". Beall has been cited as an expert on the topic of predatory journals/publishers by several newspapers and even Science. Hence, is blog certainly is a reliable source and it is widely accepted as such. If I would have written that blog, with exactly the same words and content, I am sure that none of these "publishers" would have been very upset, because nobody would take me seriously. But when Beall writes it, that obviously makes a big difference. --Randykitty (talk) 20:44, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
Often Science and Nature publish pieces which should not be confounded with peer reviewedscholarly articles. For example, there is an obvious conflict of interest when their journalists and science reporters -- not independent scientists -- talk about open access publishing. These pieces should be cited with care. For example, Who's Afraid of Peer Review? would be outright rejected as a scientific study -- there's no randomized sampling, control group, etc. I wonder how much of the predatory open access journals perceived issue has been sensationalism by non-OA publishers. A trivial media study would easily trounce with such a bias. Individual news pieces may seem innocuous but when you take their collective set, a clear systemic bias emerges. Wikipedia should not play in their hands. I'll stop here before I'm accused of conspiracy theorist. Thanks everyone for your efforts in keeping checks and balances in place at Wikipedia. Fgnievinski (talk) 00:51, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
Newspapers also publish articles that have not gone through the academic peer review process. That doesn't prevent us from using them as sources. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:12, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
For Sale: “Your Name Here” in a Prestigious Science Journal
Scientific American has a recent article- For Sale: “Your Name Here” in a Prestigious Science Journal- on "outfits that offer to arrange, for a fee, authorship of papers to be published in peer-reviewed outlets. They seem to cater to researchers looking for a quick and dirty way of getting a publication in a prestigious international scientific journal." Basically third party companies that appear to introduce plagiarized or formulaic articles. I'm not sure which article(s) is/are the best to mention it (here? Academic journal? Plagiarism? Essay mill? Peer review failures? etc.) or if the topic is already covered elsewhere but it's an important issue to the integrity of academic publishing. --Animalparty-- (talk) 22:12, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
It's related, but not really the same issue as predatory publishing. As far as I can tell from reading this and other recent articles on the topic, this is about getting false ownership of papers published in legitimate journals, while this article is about illegitimate journals that pretend to be legitimate ones. So I'd support including a link to it in the see-also section of this article (if we have another separate article on this topic) but I don't think it really fits in this one. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:08, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
Nomoskedasticity's reverts
Nomoskedasticity has reverted this: "Many of the accused publishers have provided interviews over the years.[1]" Would you care to elaborate on the reason? Thanks. Fgnievinski (talk) 20:30, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
Given that I have no clue what that phrase is supposed to say, I agree with the revert. --Randykitty (talk) 20:49, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
What specific word is unclear? Thanks for your goodwill. Fgnievinski (talk) 20:57, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
This is one of those cases where you understand every single word and still don't understand the phrase. What interviews? What were they about? What is so special about publishers giving interviews? "Many of the accused publishers have had dinner over the years" makes about as much sense as what you wrote. Try to get some distance from the stuff you write, if you're too close, you develop a tunnel vision and just assume that your reader follows the same train of thought, even when things are not so obvious for someone who is not telepathic... --Randykitty (talk) 21:02, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for your feedback. Here's another attempt at paraphrasing: "Many of the publishers accused by Beall of being predatory have been interviewed by independent journalist Richard Poynder regarding their business practice." In case it remains unclear, may I ask you to consult the original source? Also, I assume the relevance of reporting the other half of the story to be self-evident. Would it be undue weight if we cite each individual publisher's interview, as a list? (AshdinBenthamHindawiInTechOMICS). Thanks. Fgnievinski (talk) 22:23, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
I could see how these interviews MIGHT contain important information which we'd want to add, but just the fact that there have been interviews doesn't seem informative or worthy of adding. As well, we need to be careful not to have too much original research synthesizing these interviews. --Pengortm (talk) 22:56, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
Well, I don't want to spend much time summarizing them (then getting reverted); I just think they ought to be brought to the reader's attention. Furthermore, Peter Suber, a notable expert on the subject, already took the time to refer to these interviews collectively, endorsing them as "the OA community is indebted to Richard Poynder". Here's another interview (and the publisher is not helping its cause): Scientific Journals International. Fgnievinski (talk) 23:02, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
The bare fact that these interviews exist is not very interesting or noteworthy. If they contain important information, they might be used in the articles on the individual publishers, if those exist. I don't see what use they are here and certainly don't see the use of a summarizing table. --Randykitty (talk) 09:52, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
Well, an expert on the subject found them notable; that is more relevant than any WP editor's opinion. Fgnievinski (talk) 15:20, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
No, it is not. Every article ahs to be on a subject that is notable, but not everything that is notable needs to be covered. If a newspaper journalist reports on his dinner with one of these publishers, that would be verifiable in a reliable source. It would be trivial and WP:UNDUE to cover it in our article on that publisher. --Randykitty (talk) 15:46, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
How on earth would the publishers' responses to being accused of being predatory be non-notable in the present article? "One-sided" comes to mind. Double standards for "allow readers to judge for themselves"? Fgnievinski (talk) 17:26, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
This is not a discussion forum! --JBL (talk) 02:19, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
No objections raised, so I applied the proposed edits. Thanks. Fgnievinski (talk) 21:42, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
Recent changes
While I agree that it is completely appropriate to mention the Bohannon sting here, I think it is undue to basically repeat a large portion of that article (including criticism of the sting - but with less-well formatted refs) here. A short mention should be enough, with a wikilink to the article on that sting for those readers who want to see the particulars. --Randykitty (talk) 08:54, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
I agree and think similarly of Tatum's work, which is already covered in Jeff Beall's article. Fgnievinski (talk) 16:21, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
In addition, there's the recent addition of the "choco pops" sting. While the article at the origin of that sting was published in a mediocre OA journal, the sting is not about OA. It's about how any (bad) study published in anything resembling an academic journal may get picked up uncritically by news outlets. It's a sting of science journalists, not a sting of OA publishers. Callinus, please read Bohannon's original article and revert your addition here, as it is inappropriate (and even if it was, it's described in detail in Bohannon's bio, no need to re-hash everything in another article). --Randykitty (talk) 21:04, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
Indeed, the Science sting operation belongs here, not all of Bohannon's work, which btw is creeping up in other articles (Science_journalism#Chocolate_hoax). fgnievinski (talk) 21:20, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
Agree. The Science sting, absolutely. The chocolate thing, nope. --Randykitty (talk) 21:39, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
Randykitty firstly this seems like ownership. Caplan argues that public trust in science is currently eroding faster than market forces are able to punish bad science publishers. I'll remove the sentence and your tag bomb. -- Callinus (talk) 22:31, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
What does Caplan have to do with it? fgnievinski (talk) 00:52, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
Nothing that I can see, the problem was with Bohannon's chocolate sting, which has been removed now. --Randykitty (talk) 08:38, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
While Beall's list addresses predatory open access publishers, this does not reflect the larger conversation that is predatory publishing practices. For more on this issues, please see: Beyond Beall's List. I propose this page move to "Predatory Publishing" to more fully reflect the issue. Megs (talk) 15:53, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
Predatory publishing currently redirects to this page. I haven't had a chance to read the article you link to yet. Perhaps you could outline more of what you were thinking the broader Predatory publishing page would consist of? My guess would be that this page should remain and that if the content merits it a separate predatory publishing page should be created which links to this page and briefly summarizes it.-Dan Eisenberg (talk) 02:23, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
Beall's list
@Fgnievinski: Hi, I noticed you keep naming various publishers as "predatory publishers" based on Beall's list, and add such info to lead sections. Well, Beall's list, first, lists "Potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers" - and there is huge difference between "a potential criminal" and "a criminal"; and second, Beall's is a personal blog containing his own original research and as such is not a reliable source for Wikipedia, at the very least not for lead sections. Hope you don't mind. Regards, kashmiriTALK 11:27, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
@Kashmiri: Please see previous lengthy discussions above; then would you please revert yourself at Frontiers Media. fgnievinski (talk) 11:42, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for the link. The purpose of LEDE is to briefly define the article's subject. The fact that the subject is listed in some publication, even one deemed secondary source (wrongly in my view - Beall's is primary research rather than a review of other studies as secondary sources should be), should not go to lede anyway; and never without a qualifier ("potential", "possible", etc.). I kept the info in the body where it belongs in my view and do not intend to revert it. Regards, kashmiriTALK 13:26, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
@David Eppstein: you reverted [5]Nurg's addition [6] of the qualifier "Some journals" next to Hindawi, arguing that "the list is of publishers, not journals, and Hindawi as a whole was clearly included in the 2012 list". First, section Predatory_open_access_publishing#External links links two lists: one of publishers and another of standalone journals. Second, later you sourced the inclusion [7], quoting as follows: "Listed as on a 'watchlist' but not as a confirmed predatory publisher in 2012: ... A set of Hindawi's journals appeared on a version of Beall's list". So in the end it seems you were able to source Nurg's addition, no? I can't seem to find the word Hindawi in the Internet Archive of Beall's list of publishers (e.g., [8]), although I do see some of Hindawi's journals in Beall's list of journals. fgnievinski (talk) 20:10, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
Removing citations to "apparently predatory publishers"
This is an inappropropriate use of an article Talk page. I'm leaving it here for the links, but closing. Jytdog (talk) 16:42, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
This has been discussed at RSN since Feb 26 here. That discussion is mostly finished, I think. Article talk pages are not appropriate places to talk about community-wide editing - RSN is the right forum for the issue you are raising in any case. This talk page is for discussions about this article. Jytdog (talk) 16:38, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing it out the discussion ongoing elsewhere; it'd have been a courtesy of notifying followers of the relevant articles before. fgnievinski (talk) 19:41, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Question regarding article scope
Hi, Everyone. Is this article intended to cover predatory publishing practices or Jeffrey Beall's writing about predatory publishing practices? While Beall coined the term and has written extensively on the topic, many people and organizations work in this space. I'd like to propose edits that represent the issue more broadly, rather than framing it around Beall's writing and the reception of that writing. This can easily be moved to his page. I look forward to your thoughts. Megs (talk) 20:23, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
I think it should be the more general topic, of course; otherwise, the title of the article would be different. One thing to be careful of, though, especially for a topic like this one that its subjects can view as being an attack, is to base what we write here only on reliable sources. By now, Beall himself surely qualifies as a "recognized expert" in the sense that his blog and list can be considered reliable despite being self-published, but that may not be true of others writing in this area. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:46, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for your comments, @David Eppstein:! I agree it's important to be careful and use appropriate sources.Megs (talk) 16:12, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
I agree that the focus should be the more general topic. --JBL (talk) 19:17, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, @Joel B. Lewis:! I'm particularly interested in the "Reception" section. There is a lot of valuable content here, but it focuses on the reception of Beall's list. What if this was reframed as responses to predatory publishing? The text could then address a lot of the same issues, including Beall's list, DOAJ, and education efforts. Megs (talk) 14:30, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
I had not looked at that section recently; I agree with you that it is currently focused (too) heavily on Beall. It's also very, very long, and with a not very informative heading. All of this suggests to me that it could be improved by the changes you suggest, moving some content to the article on Beall and broadening the focus, as well as perhaps being split into multiple sections or sub-sections with better-defined content. --JBL (talk) 19:12, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
Response section needs to be structured and renamed
The Response section is poorly organized and needs some restructuring. Maybe it should be renamed to "Controversies" or something too. Peteruetz (talk) 01:18, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
Hi Everyone, I have written an article on so-called predatory conferences and retargeted redirects like fraudulent conference to it. Comments / changes / suggestions welcome, obviously, along with addition appropriate incoming links, categories, etc. I'm noting the new article here as the topic is discussed above and these meetings are the sibling of predatory publishing. Thanks. EdChem (talk) 23:55, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
Include list or not
So currently, The See also section lists some past and present members of Beall's list. It might be more worthwhile to link to the full list in the External links section than list half a dozen entries in See also. Alternatively, the list could be copied over to a separate List of predatory journals page. I've put the list below:
Extended content
Journals
Academic Exchange Quarterly
Academic Research Reviews
Academy of Contemporary Research Journal (AOCRJ)
ACME Intellects
Acta de Gerencia Ciencia (CAGENA)
Acta Advances in Agricultural Sciences (AAAS)
Acta Kinesiologica
Acta Medica International
Acta Scientiae et Intellectus
Acta Velit
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What do people recon? My thoughts are that the incomplete list is misleading, but the full list would overwhelm the article. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 08:45, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
I see no reason to include Beall's list in its entirety. After all, the vast majority are so non-notable that the only source about them is that list. A partial list, including the few predatory publishers that (usually through some scandal or another) managed to become notable, seems more useful. --Randykitty (talk) 10:04, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
Are the current inclusions precisely those members with Wikipedia articles? Would that work here? In one or two lists I have managed I have found this to be a useful and objective criterion, with a built-in notability and sourcing check. --JBL (talk) 14:28, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
I think this list contains all that currently have WP articles, but should check with "what links here" at Jeffrey Beall. I agree that such is a useful and suitably objective criterion for inclusion. --Randykitty (talk) 14:36, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
As Eastmain mentioned, Beall suddenly and silently removed most of his public work and online presence.
This blog has a pile of info if you feel like checking it out further.
Seems pretty obvious that it's a legal situation (eg a settlement), which is why he hasn't said anything to clear up the confusion. -- bornLoser (talk) 01:32, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
That blog has a bunch of speculation. Retraction watch's post seems pretty definitive but let's wait a bit more until this gets yet more mainstream coverage. Jytdog (talk) 01:50, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
Why leave the article out-of-date in the meantime though? Shouldn't it be updated in real-time with whatever information we have available, limited as it is (ie the retraction watch and ScienceInsider article atm)? Or am i misunderstanding something here? -- bornLoser (talk) 02:27, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
Because WP:NOTNEWS (policy) and WP:NODEADLINE (often-cited essay). Our mission is to provide people with accepted knowledge (per WP:NOTEVERYTHING (policy) and we should get it right. As i said sourcing things from Retraction Watch's post would not be terrible, but twitter and other social media reactions, we don't need. Jytdog (talk) 02:56, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
I added a count of the list members based on the cached file referenced in the introductory paragraph.LexLife (talk) 19:51, 29 January 2017 (UTC)
Beall's List as its own separate article
I propose that Beall's List should have its own separate article since it is a subset of predatory OA publishing. After all, even before Beall's List disappeared, there were undoubtedly many publishers who would satisfy Beall's criteria that are not included by Beall, simply because he did not have time to research them or is unaware of them. Right now, info on Beall's List is separated into both Jeffrey Beall and this article, which is also unusual. I envisage this article describing what Predatory OA is, and then having a prominent section with "see also: Beall's List" in it, and Beall's List having its own separate article describing all of Beall's personal criteria.
The link belongs in the external links section and references section, where it already is. Please do not directly link text within articles to outside sides, per WP:LAYOUTEL: "hyperlinks should not appear in the article's body text". —David Eppstein (talk) 19:24, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
David Eppstein, what is it that causes you to greet a new user with such discourtesy? Cgass, the page already says that the list has been discontinued. What other change(s) should be made? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 13:02, 17 February 2017 (UTC)
My feeling is that actual new users would not, as their first edit, come to this talk page and repeat the same talking points that the previous series of single-purpose accounts have already been making in an attempt to delegitimize any criticism of their journals. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:20, 17 February 2017 (UTC)
Which is a pretty reasonable idea -- one that could have been anticipated, even... Nomoskedasticity (talk) 21:31, 17 February 2017 (UTC)
Agreed. Why waste time on obvious trolls? Sławomir Biały (talk) 21:45, 17 February 2017 (UTC)
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@David Eppstein: Beall's list is no longer active, and the "current and past" list of publishers that were included on the list should be removed. Publishers were regularly added and removed from Beall's list, and the list on Wikipedia could be updated accordingly. That is no longer the case. Megs (talk) 20:23, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
See WP:NOTTEMPORARY. If it was appropriate to include this material, it remains appropriate. I agree that the word "current" should be removed, though. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:54, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
Thanks,@David Eppstein: I'm not advocating that we remove any mention of Beall's list, in which I case I would agree WP:NOTTEMPORARY applies. The article discusses predatory publishing broadly and should not include the details of a blacklist, especially one that is no longer maintained. This information is available via the external links to the archived versions. Megs (talk) 21:21, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
I agree with Megs that this should be removed. It's not about NOTTEMPORARY - Beall also included a mechanic for appeals. For example, Hindawi if I remember right used to be on Beall's list, but was no longer there as of latest update. Therefore Hindawi should not be in the list in this article. In the same way, since Beall's list is now defunct, we can't say which publishers are still included in it. Best thing to do is to remove all of them. Banedon (talk) 00:45, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
It is a fact that the journals listed under "current" were listed when it went down. I have changed "current" to "Inclusions when list was discontinued" Jytdog (talk) 05:43, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
"Inclusions when list was discontinued" is certainly an improvement, but why do we need the list at all? When Beall's list was active, it merely duplicated content that was already there. Now that it's defunct, it's not possible to update the status based on current practices. I checked each of the WP pages for these publishers and all mention that they were included on Beall's list or otherwise accused of being a predatory publisher. It strikes me as both outdated and superfluous to this article. Megs (talk) 19:21, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
This article is about a general phenomenon, and the listed articles are the ones we have about specific examples of that phenomenon. It's like you're asking why we need to include the links to individual presidents in our article President of the United States. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:54, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
I tend to agree with David Eppstein, although the list does seem a little arbitrary to me since the Beall's list had many publishers on it than we list. I imagine these are just ones that we have wiki articles for and that editors bothered to create links to about? If so, perhaps we should call the headings something like "Selected past inclusions" and "Selected Inclusions when list was discontinued"? It still would lack a little transparency for our selection criteria--but would seem better than the current situation to me. -Pengortm (talk) 01:50, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
I still don't like it. Once a US President, always a US president (at least in history), but this is something that can change. It's like giving a "list of people who have ___ cancer" and including people even if they have potentially been cured. It's hard for me to see this as fair. I'd be OK with listing the various publishers only if they're sourced to something other than archived copies of Beall's list. Banedon (talk) 08:12, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
It is a fact that they were on the list when it ended. That is what the article says. Jytdog (talk) 13:10, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
No one disputes that it's a fact; the question is the correct way to handle it. Here is an analogy: suppose US News goes out of business and stops producing its college rankings. The article university rankings (hypothetical, I haven't checked if it exists) could in principle maintain a copy of US News's top 50 (or whatever); when US News calls it quits, how should the article change? Six months later, maintaining a copy of the last US News ranking is, I think, very defensible. 50 years later, it's dubiously so. This is true even though the fact of the last US News ranking doesn't change. I think it's a reasonable question to ask how information about Beall's list should be incorporated for the longer-term. Including a list of notable inclusions in the final version is not a permanent solution. --JBL (talk) 22:17, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
If there were something else like Beall's list, your analogy would be somewhat valid. Jytdog (talk) 01:03, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
No, that's obviously irrelevant. Try to be serious. --JBL (talk) 01:05, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
I think the analogy is relevant. I am not sure where the cut-off time is--but I don't think it has come yet and that is my sense from the other editors as well. I think listing it still makes sense since while Beall's list is now defunct, it still carries real weight. Seems we should leave it as is for now and revisit later. -Pengortm (talk) 01:23, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
I think JBL hit the nail right on the head (and gave a better analogy too). Either remove all these publishers from this article, or source them to something other than a no-longer-updated Beall's list. I'd say something like list any publisher that has a RS calling them predatory after Beall's list went defunct, remove everything else, and give the archived Beall's list in a "references" or "see also" section of some kind. Banedon (talk) 01:26, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
There are loads of college raters and they are mostly used as sources for yet more BOOSTERism content by people who are not here to build an encyclopedia, but rather promote their employer or alma mater. And there are many. Beall's list was and is a unique resource. But a better analogy would be a list of the signers of the declaration of independence as of say May 1776. People's presence on that list meant a specific thing. Jytdog (talk) 01:38, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
The US declaration of independence is a one-off document however. Once you sign that you are forever a signatory (at least of the 1776 version). The same does not apply to Beall's list, which is fluid. It's supposed to provide a list of predatory publishers, but non-predatory publishers can be come predatory, and formerly-predatory publishers can cease to be predatory. That's why it needed to be updated. Once the list stops being updated, it's only a matter of time before it ceases to be useful. Banedon (talk) 01:46, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
yep no analogy is perfect. what matters is "useful" and as this is clearly labelled nobody competent will take it as "current" - it is not useful for identifying what journals are still predatory. we lost an important service. Jytdog (talk) 03:08, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
Cabell's and Cabell's blacklist
I am surprised that there is no mention of Cabell's new blacklist of predatory journals. Indeed, I cannot even find a page on Wikipedia for Cabell's International (the company). I think there should at least be a mention of Cabell's new blacklist but as I don't have direct access to it, I would not be the best person to add it. Also, I think there should be a page for Cabell's International as they are a not insignificant organization.Derek Pyne2 (talk) 00:50, 9 August 2017 (UTC) 18:55, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. I started a section on it. Jytdog (talk) 06:23, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
