Roy Robertson
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Nevertheless, it is not a unique problem of OA journals. It has been a long enduring practice of a lot of stuff I have witnessed in academia in fact; indeed __long__ before OA was even an idea that could be implemented. Academics have stubborn opinions (sometimes right and sometimes not) and will find a way around the roadblocks (rightly or wrongly) put against these ideas.
I have already commented on several of your posts on this matter. I understand that this is annoying to you in particular, but this is one miscreant act in one journal: with Animals possibly yet another. I can accept that mdpi has some issues. Nevertheless, these are far from unique to OA and could have happened elsewhere to some unsuspecting editor.
How about the recent blow up over Obokata’s publications in Nature and the handling of matters at RIKEN? More and more big kahunas on the author list and your paper is guaranteed respect in the Nature pipeline? Prof so-and-so is an authority, who would _dare_ to question this? Yet us little fish are quickly shook off before it ever gets to the reviewers for a serious evaluation.
Academics was once part of nobility. It is, therefore, even today, a system that largely presumes that articles and research are submitted to journals in good faith. In effect, authors agree to that upon submission. Perhaps there have always been frauds in this business, but fraud is a very serious (career demolishing) crime to charge a scientist with. It speaks to the very intellectual integrity of the person.
I can agree that mdpi probably needs a few more checks and balances. NPG evidently does too. Can we at least finally move from justice in the time of Achan (Jos 7:16ff) to that understood in the time of Ezekiel (Ez 18)?
