Talk:Elsevier/Archives/2018

Chaos, Solitons & Fractals

@Headbomb: Can you please explain which sources demonstrate that this controversy is worthy of a mention in this article? As I noted in my edit summary, the sources cited make almost no mention of Elsevier. IMO it belongs in Mohamed El Naschie (where it is already adequately discussed) but not here. It seems of more relevance to Nature than Elsevier. SmartSE (talk) 17:30, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Oh and FYI (and anyone else watching) I was drawn to this after WP:COIN#Requesting help with potential COI and lack of article neutrality. SmartSE (talk) 17:51, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

The story was covered by multiple high profile sources, so it's prima facie sufficiently relevant. Nature is just a bystander, they are relevant to the story just because their case ended up proving that the story is "substantially true", per the Guardian article. The topic of peer review and quality is clearly important, it's the core business of Elsevier.

I'm reverting the removal. --Nemo 05:58, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

With no sources discussing Elsevier's role in this, it's completely WP:UNDUE. Presuming you mean this Guardian article that doesn't even mention Elsevier - so obviously the journalist did not consider it important and to suggest otherwise is WP:OR. SmartSE (talk) 09:35, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

The Guardian article talks about an Elsevier product. On what basis do you consider it's original research to include it? Are you saying the policies would also require us to remove Dove from Unilever#Advertising because the respective sources only talk about Dove and not Unilever? Anyway, the Guardian article is just an add-on. It could be removed and the whole section could just stand on the original Nature article, if we want to be more selective on sources. --Nemo 10:55, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes but what is there to suggest that this is a noteworthy event in Elsevier's history? Bringing up WP:OTHERCRAP isn't helpful. Even the Nature article only mentions Elsevier rather than inferring that this is part of a wider problem. SmartSE (talk) 12:39, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

We can certainly find better sources, just please be specific in saying what you think needs to be sourced. Does the current text of the section infer that it's part of a wider problem? I don't see such a statement or implication. The section is just there to document a widely-reported event which is relevant to Elsevier's core business, i.e. running a platform for peer reviewed journals. Do you think there is a need for additional sources or illustrations of why it's relevant if the peer review system fails? Or what else? --Nemo 12:49, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

At the risk of repeating myself, it's not that it is lacking sources, it's whether or not sources exist that demonstrate this is an important event in Elsevier's history. At present, the sources indicate this was an issue with one journal, out of many thousands and I therefore see no reason to include it here, especially in such detail, when it is already adequately covered in other articles. SmartSE (talk) 16:27, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Where is that covered? Because Chaos, Solitons & Fractals redirects here. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:29, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

see Mohamed_El_Naschie#Chaos,_Solitons_&_Fractals. That would be a better target for the redirect IMO. SmartSE (talk) 16:38, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

I'd be fine with that, personally. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:55, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Reliable sources

I see that Smartse has been removing some information citing Wikipedia:Reliable sources, but most of those judgements appear hasty and it's not clear that they have read or considered all the relevant guidelines, for instance for prominent academics. It's therefore hard to understand what was meant. For instance, is this removal asserting that Scholarly Kitchen is not a reliable source? --Nemo 06:06, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

@Nemo bis: WP:SPS does make allowances for the use of blogs, but only where Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. I would hardly say that http://rossmounce.co.uk is a "prominent academic" they are certainly not notable per WP:PROF and I can't find any reliable sources demonstrating that they are an expert in academic publishing. http://www.paywallwatch.com is down at the moment, but IIRC it is operated by Graham Steel, (Steelgraham) who again does not appear to be an expert in academic publishing, as demonstratable from RS. Per https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/about/ Scholarly Kitchen most likely is an RS since they have an editor etc. so I did screw up there. Another I removed was to https://www.researchresearch.com/company/ which is definitely not RS. Martin Eve might be an expert on publishing, but we can't cite his own blog as you have done about referring Elsevier to regulators - this needs secondary coverage to demonstrate WP:WEIGHT. SmartSE (talk) 10:00, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for explaining. I understand that you missed Scholarly Kitchen among all those links, the paragraph was admittedly rather messy.

As for Ross Mounce, I think it's fairly easy to find multiple sources citing him on the subject of academic publishing, e.g. Scholarly Kitchen itself. We could dig more, but only after establishing what we're looking for. What is in need of very good sources? That the fact is true? That the fact would be very important?

As for Martin Eve, I agree that secondary reporting would be better. Unless Elsevier gets reported to antitrust regulators regularly, I think the mere fact is sufficiently important to warrant a sentence like that. The statement of fact comes with a primary source and a non-personal statement by at least three academics, if I remember correctly, which is enough both to prove the fact and to to put it above let's say 99 % of posts by academics on the subject of Elsevier. --Nemo 11:09, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

In what world is The Scholarly Kitchen not a reliable source? Nevermind, you're saying that it is reliable, read too fast..Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:32, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Re Ross Mounce - that doesn't demonstrate that he is an expert. If SK repeat something he's written on his blog then we can cite the SK article but we can't decide ourselves which of his blog posts should be referenced here.

Activists start lawsuits etc. all of the time. To be mentioned in Wikipedia we require an independent reliable source to have taken notice of them. We aren't here to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS by spreading the word. Respectfully, what you "think" is worthy has no basis in policy and primary sources must be used very carefully. SmartSE (talk) 16:38, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Elsevier published 6 fake journals

https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/27383/title/Elsevier-published-6-fake-journals/

"Scientific publishing giant Elsevier put out a total of six publications between 2000 and 2005 that were sponsored by unnamed pharmaceutical companies and looked like peer reviewed medical journals, but did not disclose sponsorship, the company has admitted. Elsevier is conducting an "internal review" of its publishing practices after allegations came to light that the company produced a pharmaceutical company-funded publication in the early 2000s without disclosing that the "journal" was corporate sponsored."

Count Iblis (talk) 00:11, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Yep. This is already covered under Elsevier#Sponsored_journals. But I'm concerned that "Sponsored journals" does not adequately convey what Elsevier did. Would anyone object to that heading being changed to "Fake journals"? That term is widely used, eg The Scientist, Nature Medicine, TechDirt, Library Journal, The Lancet (an Elsevier Journal!) and Sydney Morning Herald. There's some high-quality sources in that list. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 00:44, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

I'd be fine with that, yes. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:06, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Fine by me too. I've checked the references and all the third party sources we mention are using the term "fake journals" or "[something that] looks like a journal". The term "sponsored journal" seems to come out of press releases. The section should also start with a sentence having Elsevier as subject, to reduce confusion. --Nemo 05:53, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm good with that as well. "Sponsored journals" is a euphemism, not compatible with NPOV. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 10:02, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't think that "fake journals" is NPOV either. It implies the articles published in them were faked, but they were reprints of real scientific articles already published elsewhere in peer reviewed journals. Is there wording that could avoid either "sponsored" or "fake"? -- Ed (Edgar181) 13:08, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure that "fake journals" implies the articles were faked. Faking articles would be straight-up fraud, and the heading would be "Fabrication of results" or "Scientific fraud" or something like that. If "fake journals" really was a misleading phrase, I doubt The Scientist, TechDirt and Nature Medicine would have used it in their headlines or they'd have been risking legal action. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 10:25, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for commenting. I think there's consensus that "Fake journals" is better than "Sponsored journals", even if it's not perfect, so I've made the change. Nemo_bis, I agree the first sentence is awkward, but I'm struggling to come up with a clearer alternative without jeopardising accuracy. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 10:25, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

New idea - Request for feedback

Hi, in order to help to balance this page, I was wondering what people would think to the idea of creating a new 'Criticism of Elsevier' page where all of the negative coverage could live in one place? This is the model that's used for Microsoft and it seems to work well over there. The main Microsoft article gives a clear, factual view of what the company is about, and its history etc. (which is what most people expect from a company encyclopedia entry), while all of the criticism/controversy is held in a single place Criticism of Microsoft for people who are interested in that. I'd be happy to do that work if people think it would help, but I wanted to get everyone's input here first. Thanks Ryoba (talk) 10:26, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

@Ryoba: If you are being paid to suggest this (which I presume you are) then you need to make that 100% clear to those contributing to the article. SmartSE (talk) 12:11, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Apologies, yes to clarify, I work in the RELX Group communications team, so I'm a paid contributor - but I hope people might see this as a useful suggestion regardless. ThanksRyoba (talk) 12:21, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

If the objective is to have a "clear, factual view of what the company is about", then let's discuss what topics to cover and with which sources. I made some proposals above and I suggest that you reply there. I don't think it's going to be a productive discussion if we focus on what to not cover. --Nemo 21:37, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

On my sandbox, I've mocked up how I'd imagine the 2 pages could look if we followed the Microsoft approach to split the information and criticism onto 2 separate pages - what do people think to this approach? User:Ryoba/sandbox The content is the same as is currently on the Elsevier page (barring anything that's changed since I started this mockup). Thanks Ryoba (talk) 11:32, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

@Ryoba: There's no need to do that for an article of this length. Also, as I think has been discussed previously, coverage of Elsevier is, on the whole, negative and this is why the article is written how it is. If that's to be changed at all, it is by providing new sources that discuss aspects of the company that the current version does not. I expect that the chances of reaching a consensus to bundle all of the critical content into a separate article is close to zero. SmartSE (talk) 16:15, 9 August 2018 (UTC)