Taxacom: MDPI diversity et al

Sat Oct 22 13:07:16 CDT 2022

The random requests are a result of the tug-of-war between editors seeking to uphold quality and MDPI office staff seeking to speed everything up. When a paper is submitted, it goes to the handling editor, who will determine suitable reviewers, and the MDPI office then takes over and contacts those reviewers. However, if those are not available, the MDPI office staff then email other reviewers from their database based simply on any match of key words, and without referring back to the editor - hence the random requests. E.g., because I am interested in snake venom evolution, I have "venom" as a field of expertise in the MDPI database, and then end up getting requests to review papers on the development of a cancer drug from ant venoms.

What is even more worrisome is that when the reviewers, however chosen, return a verdict of "minor revision", the MDPI office staff then send the reviewer comments straight back to the authors without referring to an editor. Only when the authors then submit their revision does the editor get to see reviewers' reports - and it's not necessarily the same editor! That then results in wailing and gnashing of teeth all around when the editor spots major problems in the revised ms and has to return it to the authors for more major revision or even has to reject it.?

This process explains why MDPI journals are often a mix of great and appalling, and why so many people get near-random review requests. Does that make MDPI predatory? Your call. As an author, those few papers I have published through them received competent and professional reviews, and my author experience was very positive. I am not a fan, but neither would I go out of my way to boycott them.

Cheers,

Wolfgang

--

Dr. Wolfgang W?ster

Reader in Zoology (Herpetology)

Molecular Ecology and Evolution at Bangor (MEEB)
School of Natural Sciences
Bangor University
Bangor LL57  2UW
Wales, UK

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From: Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at lists.ku.edu> on behalf of Peter Uetz via Taxacom <taxacom at lists.ku.edu>
Sent: 22 October 2022 16:30
To: Taxa com <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Subject: Re: Taxacom: MDPI diversity et al

Mike said, "Don't attack the publisher or the author, it is not their fault.?

Well, it?s clearly everybody?s fault who participates in bad publishing practices.

? Authors shouldn?t submit shoddy papers.
? Reviewers and editors shouldn?t be too lenient and accept inacceptable papers.
? Publishers shouldn?t be too greedy and dodge quality for profit.
? And readers shouldn?t cite sloppy papers or pay for crappy journals. In extreme cases we should name names and point out obvious flaws, e.g. in comments (if available) or via PubPeer, if not criticizing them in follow-up papers.

? BTW, taxonomic databases should be explicit and comment on such issues as well, so users can find flaws more easily :)
     (and you should submit such problems to them so they can provide a more objective representation of the literature)

As several of you said, it?s difficult to generalize across numerous journals of one publisher but MDPI does have one bad habit: they seem to send out reviewer requests almost randomly. Just 3 days ago I got a request from the MDPI journal ?Nutrients? to review a paper on the "Influence of sonication pretreatment on antiradical and anti-ACE activity of protein hydrolysates from fermented pork loins? ? seriously?

????????????????????????????????????
Peter Uetz
Center for Biological Data Science
Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond, VA 23284
USA

Reptile Database
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