The research community needs to unite to expose, name and shame these increasingly criminal practices by predatory "publishers" bent on making a fast buck by abusing the research community's legitimate desire for open access (OA) (as well as exploiting some researchers' temptation to get accepted for publication fast, no matter what the cost or quality).<div>
<br></div><div>I cannot omit mentioning that this is yet another symptom of "gold fever," in which researchers mistakenly assume that OA only means publishing their articles in a gold OA journal (often for a price) and forget about green OA self-archiving of articles published in subscription journals, and at no additional cost.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Green OA retains the quality and track-record of established journals, and needs to come first. If and when universally mandated green OA makes subscriptions unsustainable, that's the time to for journals to make the transition to gold OA, maintaining their respective authorships, readerships, refereeships, and titles, hence their quality and track-record.</div>
<div><br></div><div>The price of pre-emptive gold fever is not just the extra gold OA fees, over and above what is still being paid for subscriptions that remain uncancelable until there is universal green OA as an alternative, but, as we see, the growth of these bottom-feeding junk-journals, purveying fool's gold.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Jeffrey Beall is performing an invaluable service: Let us all help him by naming and shaming the false-name-shamers so they don't keep treating the research community like a community of suckers waiting (and asking) to be bilked.<br>
<div><br></div><div>Stevan Harnad<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">Peter Suber</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:peter.suber@gmail.com">peter.suber@gmail.com</a>></span><br>
Date: Tue, Dec 18, 2012 at 12:48 PM<br>Subject: [sparc-oaforum] Fwd: [SCHOLCOMM] Backlash against my blog<br>To: SOAF post <<a href="mailto:sparc-oaforum@arl.org">sparc-oaforum@arl.org</a>>, BOAI Forum post <<a href="mailto:boai-forum@ecs.soton.ac.uk">boai-forum@ecs.soton.ac.uk</a>>, GOAL post <<a href="mailto:goal@eprints.org">goal@eprints.org</a>><br>
<br><br><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><font>[Forwarding from Jeffrey Beall, via the ScholComm list. --Peter Suber.]<br></font><br></font><div class="gmail_quote"><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><br></font><div lang="EN-US" link="blue" vlink="purple">
<div><p class="MsoNormal"><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif">Colleagues,<u></u><u></u></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif">I am the author of <a href="http://scholarlyoa.com/" target="_blank">Scholarly Open Access</a>, a blog that includes lists of questionable scholarly publishers and questionable independent journals. <u></u><u></u></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif">I'm writing to let people that I've been the victim of an ongoing, organized attempt to discredit me and my blog. <u></u><u></u></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif">Specifically, I've been a victim of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_spoofing" target="_blank">email spoofing</a>, in which someone is sending emails that appear to be from me but really are not. <u></u><u></u></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif">One of the spoofed emails is an offer to "reevaluate" a publisher's presence on my list for five thousand dollars. These emails try to make it look like I am extorting money from publishers. <u></u><u></u></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif">Also, someone is going around setting up new blogs that reprint the spoofed email or that include contrived quotes from scholars. An example is <a href="http://editormedicinalchemistry.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/jeffrey-beall-is-blackmailing-small-open-access-publishers-through-his-predatory-publishers-blog/" target="_blank">here</a>. <u></u><u></u></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif">Additionally, someone is leaving negative comments about me and my work on various OA-related blogs and websites, writing in the names of people prominent in the OA movement. One place this occurred was in the comments section of my October <i>Nature</i> piece. The publisher has removed these spurious statements and closed further comments.<u></u><u></u></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif">I'm going to continue my work identifying questionable and predatory publishers as best I can. Because many of the publishers on my list are true criminals, it's no surprise that they would respond in a criminal way. <u></u><u></u></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif">I realize my blog is not perfect; I've made mistakes and have tried to learn from them. Many of you have given me valuable advice, and I have tried to implement the good advice as best I could. I have not engaged in any of the activities that they are trying to frame me with.<u></u><u></u></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif">Thanks for your understanding. <u></u><u></u></font></p><p class="MsoNormal">
<font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif">Jeffrey<u></u><u></u></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="color:rgb(38,38,38)"><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif">Jeffrey Beall, MA, MSLS, Associate Professor<u></u><u></u></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left">
<font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><span style="color:rgb(38,38,38)">Scholarly Initiatives Librarian<br>Auraria Library<br>University of Colorado Denver<br>1100 Lawrence St.<br>Denver, Colo. 80204 USA<br><a href="tel:%28303%29%20556-5936" value="+13035565936" target="_blank">(303) 556-5936</a></span><span style="color:gray"><br>
</span><span style="color:blue"><a href="http://jeffrey.beall@ucdenver.edu" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">jeffrey.beall@ucdenver.edu</span></a><u></u><u></u></span></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left">
<span style="color:blue"><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="color:rgb(31,73,125)"><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><img border="0" width="325" height="48" src="cid:image001.jpg@01CDDD00.B3F37DB0" alt="Description: Description: http://www.ucdenver.edu/about/departments/oiuc/brand/downloads/branddownloads/branddocuments/Logos-E-mail%20Signatures/emailSig_2campus.png"><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><u></u><u></u></font></span></font></span></p>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></font></p></font></span></div></div></div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
<p></p>
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