[mananaysiempre]

There are, notably, two different if frequently confused “academic we” conventions, distinguished by their clusivity[1]: the inclusive “academic we” in constructions such as “thus we see that ...” refers to the author(s) and the reader (or the lecturer and the listener) collectively and is completely reasonable; the exclusive “academic we” referring only to the single author themselves, is indeed a somewhat stupid version of the “royal we” and is prohibited by some journals (though also required by others).

[kragen]

Yeah, it's the exclusive version that bugs me: "We tested the samples to failure on an INTRON tester under quasistatic conditions." It's nice to hear some journals prohibit it.

[mzs]

passive voice in that case

[kragen]

Yes, the passive voice is a good alternative, but sometimes people use the royal "we" instead.