Talk:Beall's List

Beall’s List as of 5 March 2015

The following titles and publishers were included in "Beall's List: Potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers" as of 5 March 2015. They are linked here to test which ones currently have blue links. -- Oa01 (talk) 13:09, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Defense of Beall's list?

I see a section of "Criticism" but no replies to the criticisms, which don't appear definitive to me. A few problems with the criticisms:

• The fact that 18% of journals tested with fake articles rejected them does not prove they are not predatory journals; it only gives evidence that at least 82% of those journals are predatory and the other 18% might have a human being look at the articles superficially before billing the authors.
• What are the qualifications of a "science communicator" to evaluate this list?
• Some librarian's discomfort with the label "predatory" is not a criticism of the list and is of dubious value.

If anyone knows of a published defense, it should be added to that section. Zaslav (talk) 08:18, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Please note that much of the content in Beall's list § Criticism is the same as the content in Jeffrey Beall § Counter-criticism. In the open merge discussion at Talk:Jeffrey Beall § Proposal to merge Beall's List back in (or move content there), I pointed out this duplication of content (and potential content fork), and I raised the question of whether the content in those criticism sections should be in either one article or the other, not in both. Obviously the same issue applies to any response to the criticism (or response to the "counter-criticism", as it's called in Jeffrey Beall). Biogeographist (talk) 16:24, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

International Journal of Humanities and Social Science listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect International Journal of Humanities and Social Science. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. DGG ( talk ) 19:45, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Revived scholarlyoa.com

Someone called Stef Brezgov had recently (circa 27 May 2019) revived https://scholarlyoa.com it seems. I'm not too sure whether it's legit enough to include in the external link section of this article. So posting here instead. --sabre23t (talk) 06:48, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

Buschman on Beall's List Affair

I see someone moved it to further reading. That makes sense. Thank you. John Buschman has written a political sociology of the controversy. It was published in 2020. It is not about Buschman, it is about the controversy. Kmccook (talk) 00:02, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

The passage that was in the article was literally "John Buschman has written a political sociology of the controversy." That's like adding "Smith wrote a book about Einstein" in an article about Einstein. It may be true that Smith wrote a book, but that's not something that needs to be mentioned, in prose, in the Einstein article. If Smith wrote something of interest about Einstein, like "Einstein was the first German-American to eat 230 pounds of lobster in one sitting", then that might be something we'd add to the article's prose, sourced to Smith. That's no different here. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:01, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

References

Example of why Beall started his list in the first place

Pre-existing in this article, before I discovered it, was this text:

Beall first became interested in predatory open-access journals (a term he coined) in 2008, when he started to receive numerous requests from dubious journals to serve on their editorial boards. He said that he "immediately became fascinated because most of the e-mails contained numerous grammatical errors."

Underneath that, in the "Legal threats" sub-section of the "History" section was a reference to a legal threat from the "Canadian Center [sic] for Science and Education". For those of you who don't know (which apparently includes at least one other editor here), "center" is the American spelling of the word that Canadians spell "centre", so it's particularly ironic that a journal claiming to be Canadian would use an American spelling in its name rather than a Canadian spelling. (I realise that this is technically a spelling error, not a grammatical error.)

I then added the "[sic]" just as I have above and added a reference to this article in a respected Canadian newspaper:

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/2017-list-of-predatory-science-journals-published-hundreds-claim-to-be-canadian/

In there it states, in its selected list of Canadian journals from Beall's 2017 list:

• The Canadian Center of Science and Education (it spells Center the American way) is in Toronto, sharing an address with Goodlife Fitness. It lists 45 journals across the gamut of sciences and humanities, and have been running for several years.

My edit was factual and not argumentative, but one editor (who should be clear from the article's history) claimed that my edit was "ridiculous", and later claimed that it was "argumentative". If I had thought my edit was going to be controversial I would have brought it up here first -- actually, I wouldn't have bothered; I have other things to do and I generally only make very minor edits here -- but as I said, it was factual, true, was backed up with a reference and is not argumentative or ridiculous, as all I did was point out a perfect and ironic example of what Beall himself referred to.

If the general consensus here is that my edit was indeed "ridiculous" and "argumentative", then I have no choice but to accept that. But I fail to understand why one editor is guarding this article and preventing perfectly reasonable edits. (I'm pretty sure there's a Wikipedia guideline/rule against that, but I don't have the link off the top of my head.)

The editor in question decided to edit war rather than engage with me, so I'm doing what he/she/they should have done in the first place, which is bring the issue here for discussion. Is my edit "ridiculous" and "argumentative", or is it just a valid edit?

--Craig (t|c) 08:33, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

• British or Canadian journals/publishers using US spelling is nothing out of the ordinary. They do that because US authors hesitate to publish in journals that they perceive as geographically-limited. I know of at least one case where the respectable British publisher Blackwell (now Wiley-Blackwell) started a journal with US spelling used in its title. As for "If I had thought my edit was going to be controversial I would have brought it up here first": as soon as it turned out to be controversial, you should have started this discussion, instead of edit-warring. You started the edit war, not the other editor (please read WP:BRD). Also, you're blaming "one editor", but you were reverted by two different editors. Putting a reference for "sic" in the middle of a name is indeed, let's say "unusual". --Randykitty (talk) 10:48, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

  The [sic] is indeed quite ridiculous, because organizations are free to choose which spelling they want to follow. Any American can come over to Canada an open a business called THE MAGICAL COLOR CENTER, and sleep easy that they won't get kidnapped by a goosestepping secret Canadian grammar police in the middle of the night for having followed American conventions. The article does point out that it's odd for a Canadian company to use American spelling, which it is. But all that does is likely points to an American person running the show, or that it's an outside organization pretending to be based in Canada. Or simply an amateur person running a US-based spellcheck not knowing there differences in Canadian/American English. Or that someone is purposefully marketing these journals to a US audience... Or that... Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 11:44, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

  In case it needs saying, I agree with both Randykitty and Headbomb. --JBL (talk) 23:08, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

  All of you are (clearly intentionally and collectively in concert) missing the point. I'm well aware that people use incorrect spellings all the time! In fact, I was just reading an article on the BBC (the British Broadcasting Corporation) website that uses both British and American spellings. I'm not here trying to change the world; I'm just trying to point out, for the benefit of readers, a classic and documented example of the spelling mistakes to which Beall himself referred as emblematic of predatory publishers. None of you have disagreed that this is a factual example (along with a reference) and none of you have presented a cogent argument against my now-disputed and -ridiculed good faith edit. You haven't even suggested an alternative edit that would achieve the same goal of clarity! Instead you've argued for style over substance and you come up with bullshit (sorry, "ridiculous" seems to be the politically correct word of the day) fantasies about Americans going to Canada and being "kidnapped by a goosestepping secret Canadian grammar police"! What the fuck are you smoking?! In your opening argument you have immediately fulfilled Godwin's law!

  But, as one of you points out on your user page, TINC. Yeah, right! You three (especially "me too" JBL/JayBeeEll) are clearly a small cabal -- as is obvious just from eyeballing all of your reverts on the first page of the history of this article -- but you're a cabal nevertheless, quite clearly guarding this article against any changes of which you don't approve.

  In the eighteen years I've been an editor here I've never been blocked and never caused the editing of an article to be blocked ... until now. But I don't have the energy or desire for this kind of drama/bullshit any more, so I'll do my future edits (which are few and far between anyway) from a dynamic IP. Life is too short to deal with arseholes like you three "guarding" your precious version of this article against all edits/enemies, real and imagined. I distinctly remember there being a policy against "guarding" articles, but this is where I admit defeat; I'm not going to waste my time trying to find it or finding people who will point me to it or enforce it. So you fuckers win because I'm too lazy.

  Congratulations! You're defeating the purpose of an encyclopaedia "anyone can edit"; someone will come along and take the time to put you in your place one of these days, but it's not me and it's not today.

  --Craig (t|c) 21:29, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

  User:Lapsus Linguae, there's plenty in there for me to block you for personal attacks, but you've indicated that you're staying away from the article and the editors--if I read your comments correctly. I assume that, if you are going to edit as an IP, you will not be returning to previous sites of conflict and/or fall foul of our policy on socking. Thank you, Drmies (talk) 21:34, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

  The issue here is you want to put a [sic] tag, which indicates an error, not a stylistic variation, on something that does not warrant a [sic] tag to begin with. While perhaps odd, if you assume a company based in Canada ought to follow Canadian spellings, it is not wrong, nor is it particularly unusual. See for example the Canadian Center for Vaccinology or the Canadian Center for Hydrodynamics.

  I'd also strongly suggest you take a deep breath and truly wonder if a [sic] tag is worth all that drama. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:29, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

  Drmies: OMG, you seem to be smoking the same drugs! What, exactly, is your definition of a "personal attack"?! Unless your definition involves my using salty language (which doesn't make it a "personal attack"), there is absolutely nothing in my post that is a "personal attack" on anyone, never mind the three that are in the aforementioned cabal guarding this page from edits that they haven't authorised. If you're an admin with the power to block people, then I suggest you need a course on what "personal attacks" are before you're allowed to wield that power. Or you can just go ahead and use the banhammer on me for life; it's not going to change my lifestyle one iota at this point.

  Since you are an admin, maybe you can explain the following to me:

  1) User JBL called me "ridiculous" and he gets away with that clearly personal attack, a free pass. Why is that?

  2) User JBL reached the 3RR threshold before me, yet only I am the one who got in trouble. Why is that?

  3) I've accused the three people in this thread (JBL, Headbomb and Randykitty [the one who claims "TINC"]) of being a cabal and "guarding" this article against edits of which they don't approve, and yet again, I am the only one who gets in trouble (threatened with being blocked) and my accusation (along with evidence) is not even worth a comment. Why is that?

  4) What, exactly, are my "personal attacks" in my previous post and who did I attack?

  Am I in the Twilight Zone here?!

  Headbomb: I took deep breaths for 18 days; I assume you did too, sadly.

  My use of "sic" was to indicate an error; you're confusing an error with a generally-accepted and -overlooked spelling variation in colloquial use because of the proximity of two different variations of English with very different national histories. If you're trying to minimise my using "sic" in the edit, why are you so vehemently supporting its reversion? Your conflicting logic escapes me. Maybe it's you who need to "take a deep breath".

  By the way, your fantasy company is just as likely to be named "神奇的色彩中心" or maybe even "神奇的色彩中心" in certain parts of Canada than "THE MAGICAL COLOR CENTER". (Congratulations on picking two consistently mis-spelled words!) Those are also different variations of the same language. Umm, sorry, what was your point again? Perhaps I'm shorter than you realise. Your examples are all pointless; shall I provide some more examples? Would that be like an "example war" instead of an edit war? Does the person who can provide the most examples win?! Again, you've lost me with your point, as you did with your "goosestepping secret Canadian grammar police".

  I love how you blame me for the drama! Next you're going to accuse me of ganging up on you three! Your logic is definitely twisted. Victim blame much?

  Again, am I in the Twilight Zone?!

  --Craig (t|c) 22:43, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

  • What, exactly, is your definition of a "personal attack"?!

  "Life is too short to deal with arseholes like you three" is a clear personal attack.

  • User JBL called me "ridiculous" and he gets away with that clearly personal attack, a free pass. Why is that?

  Because he didn't call you ridiculous, he called your edit ridiculous.

  • User JBL reached the 3RR threshold before me, yet only I am the one who got in trouble. Why is that?

  Because you're the one editing against consensus and are displaying a WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality.

  • My use of "sic" was to indicate an error

  And that's the issue. It is not an error. It's, at worse, an oddity.

  Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:59, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

  @Headbomb: I got pulled back into Wikipedia by another of your ilk on a different article, but I'm glad to see that you have proved my point that you three (or four including @Drmies) are indeed a cabal by answering my questions directed at Drmies.

  • "Life is too short to deal with arseholes like you three" is a clear personal attack.

  That's just a calculated (and very well-deserved, I might add) insult. In my mind that's very different from the nebulous and ambiguous term "personal attack".

  • Because he didn't call you ridiculous, he called your edit ridiculous.

  Oh, I'm terribly sorry for interpreting his calling my *actions* "ridiculous" as calling *me* ridiculous. I completely see your point.

  • Because you're the one editing against consensus and are displaying a WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality.

  There was no consensus against which to battle when I made my edit, unless you're considering your little cabal's private agreement on the previous state of the article to be "consensus". In my mind that's just bullying, ganging up and guarding your preferred version of this article. That is in no way "consensus". A battleground is a lonely place with only one party there to battle.

  • And that's the issue. It is not an error. It's, at worse [sic], an oddity.

  It *is* an error. Why don't we just spell the word "kjh&b" then? Who appointed you the head of the Language Police?

  --Craig (t|c) 04:36, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Guys, take this to WP:ANI. The direction this discussion has taken does not belong on this talk page. ~Anachronist (talk) 03:50, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm happy to take this anywhere where fresh eyes will look at it. I think most of you are admins, right, so lead the way! --Craig (t|c) 07:36, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Minimize duplication

There's lots of duplication between the two articles, as indicated in previous discussions, e.g.:

• Talk:Jeffrey_Beall#Proposal_to_merge_Beall's_List_back_in_(or_move_content_there)
• Talk:Beall's_List#Defense_of_Beall's_list?

I'd like to propose initially merging section Jeffrey_Beall#Counter-criticism into Beall's_List#Criticism, as they're near exact duplicates. fgnievinski (talk) 03:25, 10 November 2023 (UTC)