After Beall's 'List of predatory publishers': problems with the list and paths forward

Abstract

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Why we should have listened to Jeffrey Beall from the start

“…Whatever it is, we hear this, from fine, principled, and learned scholars, in reference to two‐faced black market quacks whose story begins and ends with wanting your money: ‘we should seek to understand their methods, track their evolution, and communicate their characteristics to our patrons’ (Berger & Cirasella, 2015), ‘We need [to] … prevent scientists from sending work to places that will not identify flaws or truly contribute to the scholarly literature’, [we're] ‘not saying there aren't sketchy journals and publishers. Of course there are’ (Crawford, 2014a), ‘there are undoubtedly publishers … that have dubious business and peer review practices … in some cases the evidence of deception is pretty strong’ (Yeates, 2017).…”

“…Years later, we find Stuart Yeates (2017) busily taking a rusty hammer and the last of the nails to what he believes is the coffin of Beall's ‘now defunct’ list’ – which actually remains, for all its dated condition, an invaluable resource, a list everyone should be paying attention to, better late than never. I am not disputing Yeates' right to air his concerns.…”

“…Journal limelight to requests and encourages researchers to acquiesce their fiercely research’. Is this an example of an ‘international dialect’ invoked by Stuart Yeates (2017) in order to castigate Beall for being unfairly intolerant of ‘poor or broken English’?…”

“…It is not to get ‘a consensus on a definition of predatory journals’ (Grudniewicz et al ., 2019) – laudable and necessary as this and all other tools may be. The aim is not to develop and refine measures of the quality of peer review, to develop ‘standardised reporting of a range of journal metrics’ or ‘improved metadata’ (Yeates, 2017), or to ‘develop and evaluate intervention strategies such as educational campaigns and policy mandates’ (Grudniewicz et al ., 2019). Nor is it to reinforce our critiques of the debate about the pros and cons of traditional and modern publishing and business models in the light of new global realities and the Internet.…”

“…Isn't an accused innocent until judged guilty? (Yeates, 2017). There is indeed a presumption of innocence in the dealings of fair and democratic systems of justice.…”