Taxacom: Special Issue “Diversity and Taxonomy of Scarabaeoidea”

Mon Jan 27 09:28:44 CST 2025

Theo,

It all depends on the academic editors involved. The managing editors have limited academic knowledge and follow their policies, such as rejecting (even the best possible) referees if they have recently collaborated with the authors, which can be an issue in fields with a limited number of experts. I myself have positive experience with MDPI as an author. As a referee, they bother me a lot because they want reviews within a short period of time so that they can have a speedy publication process. Having a manuscript for review sitting on your desk for a month is not possible with MDPI.

I know the anaconda case, but I am also aware that most of the 10,000 retracted papers of 2023 were published in traditional journals, and their peer reviewers and publishing process apparently failed also.
Look at how taxonomy has been treated by journals like Science or Nature that put it into non-Code-compliant electronic supplements. I would say that the editors of Science and Nature are as competent handling taxonomy as the managing editors of MDPI are competent academically, or even worse. I also have my own bad experiences, as author and referee, with highly reputable journals. MDPI is fast, and it is also fast-growing. The former can certainly be an issue for quality if the academic editor allows it. I won't. The latter certainly angers traditional publishers like Elsevier.

I find increasingly interesting, relevant, and high quality papers in MDPI journals. There are bad ones, too, for sure - as in many or even most journals.

Let’s make sure that there won't be any bad ones in the Special Issue on scarabs.

All the best

Frank

Dr. Frank-Thorsten Krell

Senior Curator of Entomology, Editor-in-Chief
Department of Zoology
Denver Museum of Nature & Science
2001 Colorado Blvd
Denver, Colorado 80205-5798, U.S.A.
Frank.krell at dmns.org
Phone 303.370.8244
Fax 303.331.6492
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-----Original Message-----
From: Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at lists.ku.edu> On Behalf Of Michael Schmitt via Taxacom
Sent: Monday, January 27, 2025 6:50 AM
To: taxacom at lists.ku.edu
Subject: Re: Taxacom: Special Issue “Diversity and Taxonomy of Scarabaeoidea”

Dear Frank, dear colleagues,

although I have no doubts that you, Frank, do a proper job as an editor, I want to state my concerns as to the style and possible risks of MDPI journals. Besides some direct personal experience that seriously speak against the correctness of the editorial conduct in some cases, I point to the recent case of a clearly poorly edited taxonomic paper in MDPI
Diversity:

Rivas JA, De La Quintana P, Mancuso M , et al. Disentangling the
anacondas: revealing a new green species and rethinking yellows.
Diversity 2024a;16:127. https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdoi.org%2F10.3390%2Fd16020127&data=05%7C02%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7Cb5dda41152584636970208dd3ee74b34%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638735885301815312%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=m8A8yr0uCVqn3LufCStg1ETlc%2BSkspePU0cCEETHTQM%3D&reserved=0. See comments on this paper in Wuester et al (2024) How not to describe a species.
Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 21 zlae099: 1-26 doi 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlae099.

Additional concerns can be found here:

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There you find the important point: *MDPI* is using some of the same techniques of predatory journals. So the question is simple: if you are a scientist, should you work with *MDPI*?

Just in case someone cares.

Best regards

Theo Michael Schmitt

Am 27.01.2025 um 03:43 schrieb Frank T. Krell via Taxacom:
> Dear Colleagues and Friends,
>
> The two open-access journals “Diversity” and “Taxonomy”, published by MDPI, Basel, Switzerland, are inviting you to contribute to the Special Issue “Diversity and Taxonomy of Scarabaeoidea” (https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mdpi.com%2Fjournal%2Fdiversity%2Fspecial_issues%2F5993P88LY3%2Chttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.mdpi.com%2Fjournal%2Ftaxonomy%2Fspecial_issues%2FIC75WN3I5C&data=05%7C02%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7Cb5dda41152584636970208dd3ee74b34%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638735885301836408%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=19fse3z2VubeOTVhH7vqIOsKwIZgywwAF0VjHti6f4Q%3D&reserved=0). I agreed to serve as Editor-in-Chief for this Special Issue after I had excellent experience with the journal Diversity in 2023, in terms of quality of peer review, editorial handling, and speed of publication.
> As these journals are open-access, they require an Article Processing Charge, which is higher for the established journal Diversity (https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mdpi.com%2Fjournal%2Fdiversity%2Fapc&data=05%7C02%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7Cb5dda41152584636970208dd3ee74b34%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638735885301846971%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=hWNaSnNXfam2ws6DZr%2BmREvenPuSBKqQUXks3Fcpmss%3D&reserved=0) than for the relatively new journal Taxonomy (https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mdpi.com%2Fjournal%2Ftaxonomy%2Fapc&data=05%7C02%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7Cb5dda41152584636970208dd3ee74b34%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638735885301857468%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=OKOtThmGaYkEws2%2BTLPi1shH18U5ki9Vn705K2GJqi0%3D&reserved=0). If you do not have funding for such fees, reductions are possible in cases. Let me know what you would like to submit, and I find out what we can do to accommodate your budget situation.
> Manuscripts of purely taxonomic content would be assigned to Taxonomy, manuscripts considering broader questions of diversity would be assigned to Diversity.
> The language of publication is English. For authors who are not fluent
> in English, the publisher offers a English Language Editing Service,
> which is not included in the Article Processing Charge, but seems to
> be
> reasonable:https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com%2F%3Furl%3Dhttps%25253&data=05%7C02%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7Cb5dda41152584636970208dd3ee74b34%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638735885301870324%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=HggLw9RKGiXChqkQSEpcLv%2FGUUbRMbki8dsuo04LsLE%3D&reserved=0
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> published fast (and well-reviewed), please consider this opportunity. The current submission deadline is 31 October 2025.
>
> Thanks, and all the best
>
> Frank
>
> Dr. Frank-Thorsten Krell
>
> Senior Curator of Entomology, Editor-in-Chief Department of Zoology
> Denver Museum of Nature & Science
> 2001 Colorado Blvd
> Denver, Colorado 80205-5798, U.S.A.
> Frank.krell at dmns.org<mailto:Frank.krell at dmns.org>
> Phone 303.370.8244
> Fax 303.331.6492
> https://www/.
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--
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Universitaet Greifswald
Allgemeine & Systematische Zoologie
Loitzer Str. 26
D-17489 Greifswald
Germany

Tel.: ++49 (0) 3834-420 4239
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