It’s Monday, 8:30, two rejections, one R&R, and two requests to review (one of which I considered spam). Hope you all have a great week!
From the spam folder: ЕԀitоrial Bοаrԁ Μҽmƅҽrs
Academic spam can be a good laugh! This morning I stumbled across this gem: academic spammers using strategies (trying) to beat the spam filters — must be a truly legitimate thing!
Yes, we have all the usual nonsense in the mail, but also the replacement of letters with others that look similar: Editorial Board Members versus ЕԀitоrial Bοаrԁ Μҽmƅҽrs…
Yes, I’m definitely going to “contrіЬute” to my community and will instantly join the editorial board of a journal nobody has ever heard of (nope, I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of mentioning you!), because they engage in “peer rҽviҽѡ”! Must be a good thing⸮
I’m sorry to tell you, though, that this mail was already in the spam folder when I found it… it’s not working.
… submit any type of the article based upon your research interest …
Academic spam can be funny some times. Who on earth is going to fall for this one?
Respected Doctor,
I had a glance at your profile online and was extremely amazed with your work. I feel you will be an ideal person who helps us for the progress of our Journal. Hence, I am approaching you through this email.
All the authors around the globe are cordially invited to submit any type of the article based upon your research interest for the upcoming edition.
I hope you will consider my request and I wish to have your speedy response in 24 hrs.
Await your cheerful comeback.
👉 So, please, all the authors around the globe, quickly submit any article! I’m sure it’s going to be great, any you’ll have plenty of readers… but note that you’ll have to respond within 24 hours…
Academic Spam
I guess I’ve got used to academic spam — invitations to publish in predatory journals. They typically scrape conference programmes, but today I got a surprising one:
I congratulate you on the paper “<paper title>”, published in the “3rd ISA Forum of SOCIOLOGY 2016”. Observing the relevance and contribution that the paper has in the field of study addressed, after analyzed by our editorial board, I invite you to publish it in <journal paper>
Mail
Yes, it took them five years to “read” the conference paper. We also get the usual nonsense of being invited, and pretension of the journal being important, but the time lag… I’m sorry, you’re simply too late.
Honorary Membership to Encourage Submission to Predatory Journal?
Wow, I’ve just been awarded a random honorary membership… to entice me to submit to a predatory journal? I don’t think so.
I mean it had everything going for, a membership of a journal (!), a membership number(!), and even an expiration date (obviously they weren’t that impressed to only offer a single quarter). I could identify two past honoraries… Shame I never heard of the journal, or the publisher, and shame it’s listed on this funny page here: https://predatoryjournals.com/publishers/ — because they also offer some great benefits, like “Indexing: In all relevant organizations”, an “artificial intelligence” 3rd reviewer which can (I quote) “can detect writing styles, plagiarism (for the second time), grammar, contextual spellings, vocabulary, and quality of the article without any human biasing” (?!). All this on top of priority during reviewing.
Seriously: https://thinkchecksubmit.org/
Didier Ruedin 