[sgt101]

>The way she worked with students was that she would dedicate herself solely on a student/paper for the duration of an entire week. That week, she would avoid thinking or listening other works/students, even when she wanted to participate.

Now we hear of academics (with their names on the papers) denying that they had anything to do with the work published, and at the same time the total fraud of academics with their names on 20+ papers a year.

Something has to give - and I think we all know what....

[dahart]

> the total fraud of academics with their names on 20+ papers a year

What fraud? It’s normal for academic advisors to at least be last author, and everyone knows that. And why shouldn’t they, if they helped fund the research, guided the topic, pointed at references, contributed to the research, edited the paper and presentation, etc., etc.? I was more than happy to put my advisor on my first paper after only the first couple of hours of his work, as he did more to make it acceptable for publication than I did in a month. And he did a lot more than that.

Also, some people are legitimately prolific enough to write a paper every 2-3 weeks. Not me, but I’ve seen it.

Publication rate alone doesn’t reflect on quality nor suggest fraud.

[sgt101]

I wrote a series of long replies, but then read this blog that says things that I think quite well.

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2025/02/17/do...

I am afraid that there is, likely, a correlation between publication rate and fraud. I agree that a very high publication rate doesn't necessarily mean fraud, but I am afraid that it does cast suspicion, in my mind, on the totality of the output of the author.

In my field I do know some legitimately high output authors. I know a lot of authors who think that they are legitimately high output, when in fact they are simply gaming the system. The sad thing is that they don't know better. I know a lot of people who believe that they have no option but to go with the flow as well - but know perfectly well that they are acting badly.

This is not just a question of academic morals. There are children who today will receive medicines that have no value, and may harm them, because of this practice. There are lines of research that will lead no where and produce no value that are being funded because of this practice. There are lines of research that would provide significant societal benefit that are not being funded because of this practice.

[dahart]

You’re jumping to some pretty big and possibly unsupported conclusions about citation gaming, which is what that blog post is about. People gaming citations are likely trying to fly under the radar and don’t want to draw public attention. Maybe also pay attention to what fields these are in too; gaming in social science might be less impactful than gaming in medicine. One of the examples in the blog post you cited was ghost authors in medical journals which means people who contributed but were not listed; this is almost the opposite problem of what you’re worrying about and it does not amount to bad science.

Medicines aren’t created from the results of a single paper, especially an obscure one with unexplained obscure citations. There are checks and balances. Medicines go through trials which don’t depend on citations. We’ve had ineffective medicines in the past, and it’s happened for other reasons. Notably, consider that the portion of ineffective and actively harmful medications were dramatically higher 50 and 100 years ago than today. If you’re worried about the effectiveness of medicines, then spend your limited time worrying about the anti-vax crowd. They are doing far more damage than people gaming academic citations.

There will always be lines of research that lead nowhere, that’s an inherent feature of the system. Experimental research into unknown topics carries risk, and it should, otherwise it’s not research. If we knew the answer, then we wouldn’t need research.

For the same reason, there will also always be lines of research that don’t get funded. Citation gaming might have a small effect, but there are dozens of other ways human behavior affects what gets funded. And things that work tend to attract people that feel strongly and tend to attract research, so citation gaming doesn’t necessarily lead to strong research getting pushed out.

Gaming of papers is definitely a problem for academics and their careers, and it’s a problem that does need to be fixed, but it’s premature to think the sky is falling. Good science isn’t ending just because some people do bad or mediocre science.

[caspper69]

This is the problem with "common knowledge" and "everybody knows" and "gut feelings".

Unless you work in an industry (such as academia, or farming, or auto manufacturing, or any of the other thousands of industries), what you know is superficial.

You think you know, because how complicated could something be?

The public could learn a thing or two by asking questions from people who make these pursuits their lives.

For instance, did you ever stop to think that Professors advise students who write papers, and are therefore listed as co-authors?

Another knee-jerk would be: look at these professors only putting out 20 papers a year; they are so inefficient- they should be mentoring far more students for the money we pay them.

It cuts every way until you talk to people.

[sgt101]

This is a good thing to read. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2025/02/17/do...

I have actually worked in academia, and in industrial research. I've served on many program committees and participated in peer review actively for many years.

I am sorry to say, I am one of the people who should be asked.

The system is corrupt, coercive, exploitative, and delivers poor results.

Things were much better when academics wrote 20 papers in a career.

[flerchin]

Dedicating a week to a paper doesn't seem incongruent with 20 papers a year, but I'm not in academia, IDK.

[boppo1]

> and I think we all know what....

No, I haven’t got a clue.

[sriram_malhar]

I think GP's point is that academics who have 20+ papers are basically running a paper mill; there is no way they are participating meaningfully in the papers their names appear in

[tom_]

But they don't say, so how can we tell? I'm not going to be vague with my comment: best thing to do in this sort of case is not to engage.

[sgt101]

The person says some of what I think much better than me:

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2025/02/17/do...

I am afraid that there is massive and systematic and harmful fraud in research: https://www.science.org/content/article/potential-fabricatio... as only one example. There are many many others. Very little work in entire fields is actually valid.

I think that the way that authorship is currently practiced has a lot to do with this fraud. Academics with ethics and goodwill can no longer effectively police the system. A large number of academics do not even want the system to be policed.