See my replies to https://www.researchgate.net/post/Should_we_delete_our_ResearchGate_accounts_in_protest_against_their_support_for_the_unfair_scientific_publishing_system/1.

Dear Andrii Tarieiev ,

MDPI is just number four in line after similar partnerships with Wiley, American Psychological Association and Taylor & Francis. Today November 21st there is the announcement of number five with the open access publisher Pensoft see for details https://www.researchgate.net/press

Best regards.

Thank you for your opinion and the link to the discussion.

This newly launched project is a good effort to explore and identify Predatory Authors and Journals . Please visit https://scholarlycritic.com

Ch. Mahmood Anwar re: Scholarlycritic.com I visited the site and spent some time looking for details about it. Do you have any further information on or affiliation with the site? The site appears to be related to the Disqus commenting platform and there is no transparency to the site, it authors or its methods. The featured critical reviews appear to be found only online, on the site. The detailed reviews do not credit any authors and [to me] they appear to be data mined collections of A.I. curated comments. Further details would be welcome, and barring that, caution would be advised.

Cheers,

Leo

Leo Atwood Thank you very much. It seems that you didn't read the site's content and commenting for the sake of comments. In the analyzed articles, the names of authors with the articles' snapshots and pdfs are available. I wonder that you are looking for transparency of website but completely ignored what is it highlighting? Disqus is just a comments plugin so that readers may comment (as you are commenting on RG with their comment plugin) like other commenting tools such as FB commenting etc. I wonder how can AI generate such in-depth insights? You need to seriously look at the website. It's not a fun. It's a serious work. Criticism is not the bed of roses. They are criticizing the published works of top-tier impact factor business journals. They have given their contact method. You can contact them. As far as my affiliation is concerned, I also highlight wrongdoings of top-tier journals and scholars. You can read my following commentary here https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/TRC-03-2022-0004/full/html . Thank for your time.

Ch. Mahmood Anwar Thank you for your reply. re: “It seems that you didn't read the site's content and [are] commenting for the sake of comments.” On the contrary, I did spend time reading the site contents and I am commenting because academic professionalism requires that criticism be first addressed to the author, and anonymous criticism is to be avoided unless there are significant reasons for it.

I agree strongly with you that critical analysis and review of published articles and editorial standards is crucial [re: “criticizing the published works of top-tier impact factor business journals.”]

However, when you wish to [”highlight wrongdoings of top-tier journals and scholars”] then professional standards must apply. You write that the "the names of authors with the articles' snapshots and pdfs are available,” I think you mean they are available if the reader wishes to search elsewhere for them, because they are not available on the site. For example at this page: https://scholarlycritic.com/international-journal-of-hospitality-management-rather-etal-2024.html

• The names of the reviewed paper’s authors in the images are stuck through.
• There are no clear text citations to the title of the reviewed article.
• The reviewed title is in an image. The text only refers to the the publication.
• The text refers to (Rather, et. al., 2024) but there is no reference at the end of the article. {Not that difficult, but the reader has to transcribe the title from the image and search for it and 'Rather et. al.'}
• Most importantly, the site does not identify any review authors or affiliations.

I asked if you were affiliated with the site because the images of the reviewer comments indicates an individual with the same surname, and the link provided at the end of the review leads to your paper, which you also link to in your comment.

If I wanted to cite this blog post criticism of (Rather, et. al., 2024)1 I would be forced to identify it as (unknown, Scholarly Critic, 2023)2 and any editor worth their salt would reject the reference as invalid.

Be that as it may, our posts have moved well-past the original question “Do you plan to stay on RG after it announced partnership with MDPI?” so I will leave it at that and you can PM message if you wish.

I am not trying to be hostile! I agree with your intent and yes “Criticism is not the bed of roses” but the first approach should be collegial, not adversarial.

Cheers,

Leo

Leo Atwood Thank you for your message. Well, very hard for me to write long message due to busy schedule. I will answer your few raised points:

I am thankful to them if they cited my work as criticism at such level is hard to find, especially, published in academic journals. I criticized top-tier tourism journal's publication and their Editor for supporting and endorsing false concept. Yes, I contribute to many other Criticism outlets including "Scholarly Criticism" as it is open for critics.

I believe they are publishing as "Organization" not as individual author. I can see they invited individuals to contribute to the cause but critics are hard to be found.

I can see that the title of articles reviewed, major issues, links to PDFs and other needed evidences are available in reviewed articles.

APA (and other citations manuals) provides various methods to cite Online Resources, for instance, you can cite: Scholarly Criticism. (2023). Critical Analysis of Rather et al. (2024) Published in the "International Journal of Hospitality Management" Shows Many Orthographic, Structural, and Methodological Errors. https://scholarlycritic.com/international-journal-of-hospitality-management-rather-etal-2024.html/ . But it's based on your intent if you really want to cite or just comment for the sake of comment.

I believe not only "Scholarly Criticism" should raise voice but also all individuals should raise their voices to "Support the Science" and to stop proliferation of false realities, mythologies, and urban legends sourced through top-tier academic journals.

I would be concerned if the issues highlighted are genuine or not rather than who is writing because I know a basic principle of hiding the sources in journalism. I also know that they can be reached at their provided contact email.

"Scholarly Criticism" doesn't criticize the article anonymously, but they involve authors, deans, journal editors, governments, and other stakeholders. For instance, the Editor of Rather et al. (2024) must have known that criticism on his edited work has been published.

I hope these answer are sufficient. We as a community of Science Lovers wish to have more people join this cause of saving the Science and say no to Scientific Corruptions. Do you agree?

Dear Ch. Mahmood Anwar my question was not about new projects in identifying predatory journals but about one specific case of a partnership between RG and some questionable publishers (in particular, MDPI but there are also several others).

Best regards.

Andrii Tarieiev It's true that MDPI's quality control practices are not good and their article acceptance rate is high, as a corporation no one can stop RG to make ties with another corporation to attain their mutual goals. Actually, the corporate power (which MDPI possess) has the power to do anything. We should wait and see.

It's unfortunate the persecution MDPI faces, while journals based in the United States and Europe have been doing something similar for years without much uproar from the scientific community, especially from Web of Science and Scopus. For example, Wiley and Hindawi publish hundreds of retractions annually without the same level of concern about them. Journals from Elsevier and Springer are often discontinued from Scopus, and this is not widely discussed. Moreover, many journals from Scielo have been discredited by these companies and labeled as "slums" simply because they are based in Brazil. It doesn't make sense to promote a witch hunt against MDPI journals. In the end, it is up to us, authors, reviewers, and editors, to act as a smart and selective barrier to what is or isn't relevant.

I'm sorry, but this is just a classic example of so-called "whataboutism". There is a huge discussion about Elsevier, Wiley, Hindavi, and other publishers because of their practices. Even more - German universities officially oppose Elsevier. MDPI, Frontiers spreading bad practices under another model - gloden OA and this should be investigated, and these publishers - held accountable. At the moment the best decision is not to publish anything there, and not to review papers for them.