Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 205

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Scientific Research Publishing

JzG believes that Scientific Research Publishing should not be used as a source on Wikipedia, due to supposedly being a predatory open access publisher. Even if this was the case, that does not necessarily affect the reliability of its content; researchers write the papers, not the journal, and the reliability of the science itself is not in question. Instead of trying to discuss this and gain consensus, JzG has now begun to unilaterally remove this journal wherever it is used as a source, thereby leaving many articles with unsourced statements, including featured ones (such as Smilodon, which is what brought me here). So I'd like some discussion of where we go from here. Either this gets blacklisted as an unreliable source, in which case we need to deal with the many resulting unsourced statements left, or JzG reverts his removals. FunkMonk (talk) 13:26, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

I do understand that predatory open access publishing is a relatively new field, and it is entirely understandable that people who don't watch the fringes of our biomedical articles (where this is rife) might not be aware of the problem.
This is a publisher which we identify in our article, based on good sources, as having substantial problems with editorial oversight, and being probably predatory. Its publications have been used by the Burzynski Clinic to publish its "studies" on so-called antineoplastons (even the clinic's own lawyer openly acknowledges that these studies are a farce), and this draft listing a bunch of publications on treatments for non-existent diseases all published either in SciRP or Ross, another predatory publisher.
Predatory publishing clearly excludes any journal from being a reliable source. The editorial oversight that is supposed to act as a gatekeeper for good science, is replaced by the scientific publishing equivalent of a wallet biopsy. Any paper whose authors can afford the fee, gets published, and that makes the source no better than any other self-published venue. A self-=published document may be correct, as may a paper published in a predatory journal, but we exclude them because there is no editorial oversight and our own policies forbid us from being the ones to make a determination as to whether a primary source is reliable or not.
How do we know which are the fraudulent papers paid for by researchders whose work is rejected elsewhere, versus those whose authors have simply been scammed?
And when that publisher is actively soliciting papers promoting cancer quackery, as this one is, then there is no remaining doubt of which one might reasonably give them benefit. Guy (Help!) 13:38, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
There are many assumptions in your statement, which is why we need a wider discussion of this before taking any unilateral action. I would even propose that all removals be reverted until we gain a consensus here. FunkMonk (talk) 13:42, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
While being published in a vanity press or predatory journal does not necessarily mean that the information in the study is false, it does mean that it's not verifiable in the sense that we mean here. What would it take, FunkMonk, to convince you personally that a journal is predatory? What do you see as your standard? Confirmation that SRP lacks of editorial oversight? Confirmation that it will publish anyone who can pay? Criticism in other reliable publications? Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:55, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
This issue is not about me being "convinced" or not, but whether we blacklist this journal or not, and what we do with the resulting unsourced statements afterwards. I couldn't care less about the journal itself, I'm worried about the articles. Simply removing sources, but not the statements they support, leaves misleading articles, and is simply irresponsible. If it is indeed policy not to use "predatory publishers" (is it?), we need this stated somewhere clearly, and filter them automatically when they're added, like we do with spam-sites. FunkMonk (talk) 14:03, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
All content is supposed to be verifiable from reliable independent secondary sources, so if the text depends on an unreliable primary source then we should simply remove it per WP:PRIMARY as well as WP:RS. Guy (Help!) 14:13, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
"All content is supposed to be verifiable from reliable independent secondary sources" – This is not true. You can WP:USEPRIMARY sources. You can use non-WP:Independent sources (e.g., nearly every article about a notable academic). All content must be verifiable in a reliable source, including non-independent, self-published, and primary sources that are reliable for the specific claim being made. Most content is supposed to be verifiable in independent sources. There is no policy requiring that "all" content be verifiable in sources that are both independent and secondary. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:55, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
Why is that not what you actually did, then? In years to come, who will know that the statements left were sourced to an paper that has now been delinked? FunkMonk (talk) 14:23, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
WP:V say any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source. If claims are uncontentious, leaving them without a source is not optimal, but not a serious problem. Backing by an unreliable source is worse than no citation at all, because it gives a wrong impression of reliability. In this particular case, I have looked at some papers published by Scientific Research Publishing, and there is no evidence of even basic fact-checking - several are pure nonsense. The journals are not reliable and should not be mistaken for good sources. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:22, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
"Backing by an unreliable source is worse than no citation at all" Sorry, but that simply doesn't cut it for featured articles. Either there's a source, or the statement is removed. FunkMonk (talk) 14:25, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
An FA should not have unreliable sources. How do we know if an individual unreliable source is promoting some quixotic idea rejected by the mainstream? Primary sources are only to be used with caution, for uncontentious facts. If the fact is contentious or if you otherwise consider it must have a source, then using an unreliable source is simply not a valid option and the text should be, as you say, removed. Guy (Help!) 14:41, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
No one said a FA should have unreliable sources. I said they should not have unreferenced statements. This means that such statements should be removed, not left, if their source is deleted. FunkMonk (talk) 14:44, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
I don't know the requirement of Featured Articles, but if there is no reference, why not put in the {{cn}} citation needed in its place? I thought that was the standard thing to do--or better yet find a source that supports it, if one exists. --David Tornheim (talk) 02:05, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
That would seem obvious, but JzG rejects doing this, for whatever reason. FunkMonk (talk) 22:20, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
...and check out his contributions page[]. He seems to be on some sort of "mission". DrChrissy (talk) 22:33, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
Yes, it's Operation Improve Wikipedia. Have you even read the articles on predatory publishing and these publishers themselves? In fact I'd expect you to be the very last person to object, given your kvetching about Science Based Medicine, which actually does have an editorial board and doesn't accept articles for pay - to find you apparently arguing for sources much less dependable than SBM is kind of weird.. Guy (Help!) 23:51, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
Is that aimed at me? If it is, please could you provide a diff regarding the purported kvetching because I have no idea what you are talking about. DrChrissy (talk) 00:18, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
How exactly does leaving a gazillion statements without source while not even leaving a note that these statements need a replacement source as result in any way "improve Wikipedia? All it does is to create unreliable articles and a giant mess for a lot of other editors to clean up. FunkMonk (talk) 00:07, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Just add the maintenance tags, Guy. That's all. You are there, you are editing the page, so finish the job. We don't need 50,000 characters of debate on the subject: Read the Template:Verify source: "If [a statement] is not doubtful, use Citation needed (or Cite quote) to request a citation to improve the article's verifiability."
Why add a maintenance tag leaving it for someone else to fix (which they probably won't), rather than fixing the actual problem? That makes no sense. It also leaves Wikipedia boosting the reputation and prominence of, bluntly, scammers. Guy (Help!) 10:27, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
What part of "not doubtful" is in question, for you? The policy for "doubtful" is clear. The policy for "not doubtful" is also clear. Yet JzG does not follow either policy. How is that doing a "huge service" for Wikipedia? Frankly, all the "huge services" JzG has performed in the last few weeks must now be carefully reviewed and reworked properly by other editors who are not so cavalier. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 18:56, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
These are not reliable sources. The thing that makes an academic journal a reliable source, is peer review, which is the core of what is missing with predatory journals. Moreover, the journals are undermining the integrity of academic publishing as a whole, they are often published this way because no reputable journal will touch them. There are no good reasons for using predatory open access journals as sources. None. The only question is what to do when they are removed. Guy (Help!) 23:41, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
All but your last statement is beyond question. And what you call a "question" is already answered in Wikipedia policy. Template:Verify source "If {a statement} is not doubtful, use Citation needed (or Cite quote) to request a citation to improve the article's verifiability." But if the statement is doubtful, the other policy applies: "Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source. Whether and how quickly material should be initially removed for not having an inline citation to a reliable source depends on the material and the overall state of the article. In some cases, editors may object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references; consider adding a citation needed tag as an interim step.[3] When tagging or removing material for lacking an inline citation, please state your concern that it may not be possible to find a published reliable source for the content, and therefore it may not be verifiable.[4] If you think the material is verifiable, you are encouraged to provide an inline citation yourself before considering whether to remove or tag it." (from Wikipedia:Verifiability) And now there is no question. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 23:50, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
No assumptions at all. We have an article describing predatory open access publishing, the facts are as stated in that article. SciRP is in Beall's list, pretty much the canonical authority. There's nothing left to assume. Guy (Help!) 14:13, 26 February 2016 (UTC)]
You mean the Wikipedia article? That's not a Wikipedia policy page. FunkMonk (talk) 14:23, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
The Wikipedia article tells us about the publisher. WP:RS tells us not to use the publisher, as it's the academic equivalent of a vanity press. This does not seem to em to be contentious. Guy (Help!) 14:43, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
As suggested by someone else here, it is subjective whether "predatory publishing" is vanity publishing. The apparent link between the two should be made explicit. FunkMonk (talk) 14:58, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
Why? It is a distinction without a difference. The source fails WP:RS, whether it fails it for one reason or three is irrelevant. Guy (Help!) 23:42, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
Actual reliable sources describe it as a predatory publisher. Personally I never draw the fine distinction between predatory and 'vanity' that some do, either way the author pays a fee to have their work published. Publishing not based on merit or peer review means it cannot be used as a reliable source and is ripe for removal.
While this might unfairly label some legitimate papers as unreliable, this is not a problem of wikipedia's making. This is the problem of the author choosing an unreliable publisher to get their work out. Papers sourced solely to such journals/publishers fail our requirements for RS.
As for removing sources cited to papers from such unreliable sources but leaving the statements they are supporting, this is an editorial decision. The editor could have removed all the info. Unless its something particularly contentious, leaving it and asking for a better source is an option available. We do have a citation needed template after all. Info *may* be removed from articles. It doesnt necessarily have to be in all cases where sources may be found that can support it. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:21, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
Exactly. We have sympathy for the victims but we are not qualified to work out which are victims and which are knowingly exploiting lack of peer-review. Guy (Help!) 14:26, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
In that case, to not leave a mass of unreferenced articles, JzG should at least leave a "citation needed" tag after every sentence he makes unsourced. And the journal should be listed somewhere or blocked. FunkMonk (talk) 14:28, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
I don't mind doing that where the cite is not redundant, but most of the facts I have seen don't appear to be disputed. Guy (Help!) 14:44, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
What do you base that on? In the case of Smilodon, the article refers to specific theories, not common knowledge or some such. FunkMonk (talk) 14:48, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
It seems to me that if a statement required a citation before, simply removing the citation without providing an alternative, or tagging with "citation needed", is close to vandalism. I have never heard before that citations are only needed where facts are disputed - I thought this was an encyclopaedia.DrChrissy (talk) 18:15, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
Well, If you are not familiar with WP:V, then I suggest you read it. And of course it does not say "only when facts are disputed". In general, removing bad sources is a step in the right direction. Removing dubious unsourced content is also a step in the right direction. But nobody can or should force a volunteer editor to make more steps than they do voluntarily. Otherwise, why not demand perfect FA's immediately.... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:02, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for confirming WP:V does not state - "only when facts are disputed". I was actually referring to an editor's previous comment, not he policy. It takes no additional effort, and no further steps, to remove the material associated with a reference if this is not a RS. It simply requires an adjustment when selecting the material to remove - I don't think this is too taxing on editors. It also takes little effort to simply place a tag on the contested reference/content. DrChrissy (talk) 22:37, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
The suggestion that users can just remove sources for being unreliable without discussion, and then leaving heaps of unsourced statements for years to come, is rather baffling. Not sure what the "why not demand perfect FA's immediately" statement has to do with anything. An article does not remain an FA for long if it has unsourced statements, so these are better off removed entirely. How hard is it really for the volunteer editor to remove a sentence preceding a source? Am I missing something? It is not about "forcing" anyone, but about common sense and courtesy. By simply removing citations, the volunteer editor is leaving even more clean-up work for other volunteer editors to do (if the removal is even noticed by anyone), and yes, forcing these to do the job for them, since the quality of the article is otherwise compromised. FunkMonk (talk) 22:53, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
The problem with this discussion is saying "x" is always or never a reliable source, full stop, is misleading. Even highly reputable sources can contain factual errors, and in those cases it would not be appropriate to cite the source. As FunkMonk suggests, if you do not believe the facts in source are reputable enough to give a solid verification to a claim, and you don't replace it with an alternative source or at least tag it with [citation needed] or [better source needed] (thus immediately flagging it as a problem), why would you believe anything in the accompanying text is correct either? This is especially important for any featured article with a scientific emphasis. In the example given here, this edit is problematic as it gives the reader the impression that the information is cited to the next inline citation along, which is (probably) wrong - so such an edit is dangerous because it gives the impression of falsified sources. To give another example, on numerous occasions I have wandered round BLPs and taken out statements cited to The Sun, and by and large I have not left the accompanying text in (usually because doing so violates WP:BLP anyway). Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 14:31, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Some points that might deserve consideration. A predatory publisher essentially produces self-published sources, in relation to the author. However, the standing policy is: 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. So in cases where on a scientific subject professional scientists have published peer-reviewed articles, their subsequent non-reviewed articles should in principle be considered reliable.

Secondly, we should remember that it is perfectly all-right to use even a questionable source as a source about that source itself. A Wikipedia article, even when addressing utterly uncontentious content, should ideally consist of statements of the form Source X claims fact Y anyway. So, when statements of the form Object X has quality Y are changed into Scientist Z stated/concluded/suggested in xxxx that object X has quality Y, it becomes irrelevant whether said scientist published this opinion in a questionable source — unless, of course, it was some silly hypothesis that should be disregarded by us because of Undue Weight, the reason why he could only publish it in a questionable source in the first place. Simply explicitly mentioning in the main text the author(s) and the studies involved, thus solves the problem.--MWAK (talk) 18:25, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree that we should treat these as self-published sources. Publications become reliable because of their editorial oversight, and inclusion in Beall's list generally implies that a publisher has liittle or no oversight or that it allows what oversight it has to be trumped by fee-seeking behavior. But I would go farther than that. A paper on arXiv, for instance, is self-published (the editorial controls at arXiv are too weak to confer reliability) but neutral: many good sources are self-published at arXiv and then later peer-reviewed, there is no profit motive complicating the issue, etc. On the other hand, no self-respecting academic would knowingly publish at a predatory publisher: reliable non-predatory academic publishers are plentiful, confer more respect on one's publications, and are generally cheaper (often free to authors rather than charging publication fees). Therefore, publication in a predatory publisher such as SRP is a symptom that something is wrong and that one should treat the source very carefully if at all. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:45, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
Agreed with treating accused sources with suspicious. But black-listing a publisher should require multiple independent sources. Beall has been called "trigger-happy" by Paul Ginsparg, the creator of arXiv, in a paper in Science. He's been said to be falsely accusing nearly one in five as being predatory (see Jeffrey_Beall#Counter-criticism). He often doesn't tell when a publisher is no longer in his list, and if it was because a once-predatory journal reformed or if it was accused unfairly. Although publishers like SRP and OMICS serve as clearer examples, that are many borderline and controversial cases, such as MDPI and Frontiers Media, which were cleared by, e.g., the Committee on Publication Ethics. fgnievinski (talk) 17:39, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

FunkMonk insists on reinserting the cite to this source demanding that if I remove it then I must also remove all text purportedly supported by it. This is surreal. Guy (Help!) 23:41, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Sigh, JzG you've done similar at Suillellus luridus. I would agree that if you are going to remove the source, please remove the fact. In this case it is pretty trivial though. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:11, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
I have done this where i think the information is likely to be disputed. Many cites were redundant (para already had a source) and most were for information that seems unlikely to be challenged. Some were of the class "X claims this Great new Theory, source X's paper in SCIRP", and those of course I have removed in their entirety. Guy (Help!) 11:13, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
"Surreal"? It is common practice. Especially for FAs. And what does "para already had a source" even mean? The source at the end of a paragraph rarely if ever supports a sentence earlier in the paragraph that is followed by a different source. You're leaving the rest of us to clean up your mess, and that's why I've reverted you. FunkMonk (talk) 12:40, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
I don't know the requirement of Featured Articles, but if deleting the predatory publication leaves no reference, why not put in the {{cn}} citation needed in its place? (as mentioned above) I thought that was the standard thing to do--or better yet find a source that supports it, if one exists. If no one can find a source for it, then it gets deleted: no mess. I don't think the FA quality is reduced by using this approach, even though "citation needed" does make the article look less attractive to the reader. But leaving in a questionable source is not much better. --David Tornheim (talk) 02:34, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
And when the form is "X claims this Great new Theory, source X's paper in SCIRP", it should not be removed at all because even when the source would be unreliable as to the content (which, again, may only be assumed if X is not an established expert), it suffices as proof that X made the claim. You are violating the NPOV principle.--MWAK (talk) 07:19, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
To leave it in sounds like WP:OR to me. I thought grand new theories had to be reported in secondary sources, right? Can you provide WP:PAG that defends your claim that this should be left in? --David Tornheim (talk) 02:39, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
Well, the existence (not truth) of even a "grand new theory" is sufficiently proven by its "primary" source if that's a scientific article. If such an article is deemed unreliable because of being published in a predatory magazine (it is BTW not to be considered unreliable if the author is an established scientist for then the rules about self-publishing should apply), this only affects the content. So we may not claim "Fact X" and merely give a citation but we may claim "Scientist Z claims Fact X" and leave it to the reader whether he wants to believe Scientist Z. To give an example: we may not claim sauropods still exist in the Congo but we may claim (and correctly do) "Roy P. Mackal in 1987 claimed that sauropods exist in the Congo" in his A Living Dinosaur? In Search of Mokele-Mbembe even though this book is very unreliable as to the biological content. Whether a predatory publisher publishes such sources then becomes utterly irrelevant.--MWAK (talk) 07:54, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
I presume we also have reliable independent secondary sources that cover that? If not, we have no idea if it's notable bollocks or just bollocks. Guy (Help!) 23:54, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Note: if one is searching for SRP publications used as sources on Wikipedia, as well as searching for their domain name in the URL, another possibility is to search for "10.4236" in the doi. Google claims to find about 231 of these. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:48, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. Guy (Help!) 11:13, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

One aspect I do not understand here is that simply the presence of a journal or publisher's name on a list is being used to delete the reference (and sometimes the associated material). I once used the Daily Mail as a source. Due to the comments I received about this, I questioned why there is no black-list of newspapers that are widely considered as non-RS so that editors considering using these sources would be alerted prior to making the edits. In the ensuing discussion, people seemed to think that setting such lists in concrete was ill-advised, so why the difference here? I then asked about the criteria that people might use as to whether a newspaper is RS or not and whether we should include this on the policy/guideline page. I met incredible resistance to this idea. Today, I have spent some time going through several of the listed predatory journals and for some of them, the only practice they have which is different to non-listed journals is they charge money for their services.DrChrissy (talk) 20:46, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

If it were only charging money for open-access publication, many well-established and mainstream academic publishers should also be listed. But no, the real problem is not the money they charge: it's that, in order to assure the continued flow of this money, these journals either perform no adequate peer review of the papers they publish (taking all or almost all submissions from authors willing to pay) or that they let the willingness to pay override the judgements of the peer reviewers. (There are also some other bad habits that can land a publisher on this list, such as falsifying their editorial boards or spamming potential contributors, that are less central to the question of how reliable they are.) —David Eppstein (talk) 00:18, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
But how do we know whether a journal is lying on its web-site about e.g. peer-review, editorial boards? Do we just put absolute trust in Beall's list being 100% accurate? DrChrissy (talk) 17:49, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
We know Beall is reliable because he is widely considered to be reliable by known experts. I know it can seem a little strange, given the vociferousness with which unreliable sources are often attacked, but at some point, we need to trust the experts. Establishing the reliability of a source isn't an exercise in formal logic, but more like the legal concept of the preponderance of evidence. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 18:39, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
I guess part of the problem is that I am seeing some papers in these journals which are written by well-established, highly reputable authors. I can think of several possible reasons for this, e.g. to achieve a necessary deadline so the paper can be included as "published" in a grant application/CV (in my subject area, publication in traditional journals often takes 6-12 months!). So what do we do about these papers? DrChrissy (talk) 18:57, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
You might be able to make a case that an article by a known, reliable expert published in a predatory journal is an RS. I think that's something we'd need to decide on a case by case basis, though. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 19:52, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
Yes - I agree entirely. I think this is actually what is intended by WP:RS which states Beware of sources that sound reliable but... might have a reputation for "predatory" behavior. I think we should note the word "Beware" does not mean "You are not permitted to use". DrChrissy (talk) 20:06, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
If people agree that this should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, would we also agree that the best place for this case-by-case discussion, at least initially, is at the Talk page of the article in question, rather than at a more general noticeboard such as this. This would likely involve those with the greatest interest and expertise in the subject matter. DrChrissy (talk) 20:38, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
It should be rejected in all cases regardless of who wrote it. A recognized expert shouldn't have any problem getting published by a respectable journal, and seeing one in a vanity journal should be considered immediately suspicious. Even under optimal circumstances, a recognized expert's paper in a reliable journal, these sources are very primary and tend to represent the personal interpretations of one researcher when the article needs to represent primarily the general consensus of the field. Passing peer review doesn't confer "truth" onto an idea, it just means that it passed enough basic review that it's worth a skeptical reading by other people trained in that field. Too often editors tend to forget that and somehow these become "truth" for uncritical perusal by an untrained audience...which is not what the paper was originally intended for. A lot of funny ideas make it past peer review because they're "safe" for other experts but would never have made it into a textbook, whose intended audience might be misled. Considering these problems, considering how many respectable journals there are that we might use instead, and considering that it's hard to see why an expert would use such a venue to make a claim representative of their field, I see no reason a vanity press should be allowed at all. Geogene (talk) 20:47, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
No. We don't reject all self-published sources (which is what these journals amount to: if you pay, they publish), so we shouldn't reject all predatory journal articles out of hand. That being said, the onus should be on the editor adding such a reference to show that this particular article is reliable, despite its publication circumstances. If someone were to come along and delete a reference to (for instance) a Brian Greene paper on string theory that was published in a predatory journal, that'd be fine. The person who added it should come back and explain carefully that Greene is a recognized expert before re-inserting it.
Also, you raise a very good point about where reputable experts will publish. The acknowledged expert who publishes in a predatory journal will be an extremely rare bird. They will be uncommon exceptions to the rule that predatory journal articles are useless. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:56, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
@User:Geogene. Perhaps I should make my example clearer. In my area of publication, it very often takes 6 to 12 months from manuscript submission for the journal to arrive on the library shelves/on line. During that time, I may wish to apply for funds for a grant which asks for a publication list. Obviously, it is more advantageous for that paper to be cited as "Published" rather than "Submitted". The predatory journals offer a much shorter time to publication, and it might be worth me paying money to get it published there so it can be included in my grant application. As a career-researcher, I would be considering the quality of my paper and how this will be viewed by my peers after publication. The standard of my paper is actually independent of the money generating practices of the publishing house (which we should remember is not the journal). I totally appreciate this type of example will not be the case for many publications in predatory journals, but I feel we need to be extremely careful of simply deleting references on the basis they are from "predatory publishers". DrChrissy (talk) 22:00, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
Okay, so experts would have a sensible reason to use a predatory journal after all. Having given this further thought, MjolnirPants would probably reject >98% of predatory journal papers as sources, and I'd reject 100%, the difference between the two isn't enough to try to edit policy over it. I do like giving my opinions though. Geogene (talk) 21:20, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
For the record, I would say I'd reject >99.9% of predatory journal articles. Other than that, I agree. The point I raised is something we should keep in mind, not something that should affect policy regarding what is considered reliable. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 21:25, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
I am actually not prepared to put a figure on this. I suspect the influence of a journal being "predatory" on the suitability of a paper as being a RS varies considerably between journals and subject areas. By the way, I am not suggesting a re-write of policy. The policy already states "Beware...", which is fair enough, but it does not state, "Do not use" or "Automatically delete". DrChrissy (talk) 21:40, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
Your example only underscores the need to look askance at such publications - the secondary gain is another reason to suspect such publications will include poor-quality research. I have no intention to impugn your work; just commenting that the example is not at all reassuring (IMHO). — soupvector (talk) 00:41, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
I agree - all publications in predatory journals should be viewed with suspicion. I actually view all publications I reference in WP with the same eye I use as an editor and reviewer in several traditional science journals. The point I am trying to make is that there are some quality papers in predatory journals and to have editors on WP deleting these simply on the basis of which publishing house they come from without discussing this on the Talk page first is clearly disruptive. DrChrissy (talk) 01:38, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
The problem is that we are not allowed to be the ones to judge whether a source is reliable: we are only allowed to choose which reliable sources we include. It doesn't matter if we like the content of a paper in a junk journal or not, it's in a junk journal, so it fails the test of being in a reliable source - and that means we don't get to decide that it is reliable after all, because Wikipedia does not allow us to be the primary judge of validity of original research. Guy (Help!) 23:45, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for the reminder about the SPS exceptions. I've occasionally used expert blogs as sources myself (everybody's got a blog, and they tend to be reader-friendly and reasonably orthodox). I'd rather not lump all the different categories of self-publishing together, because some types should attract more suspicion than others, for the reasons I've given. But the existing policy does seem to support that. Geogene (talk) 21:50, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, this is a category of SPS that warrants a metric fuck-ton of suspicion. That being said, I just can't escape the conclusion that there might be a few rare gems to be found. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:02, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

  • In spite of this discussion being ongoing, and no consensus has been reached, JzG just keeps on mass-removing sources as a bulldozer without any prior discussion (see various complaints by several editors on his talk page). I suggest he refrain from doing anything of the sort until some conclusion has been reached here. FunkMonk (talk) 23:36, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
This is really very simple: every single time I have removed one of these sources, it has been a WP:PRIMARY source. Primary sources are deprecated. We also know, because these are predatory publishers, that the things which allow us to sometimes use primary sources - academic peer-review weeding out the crap, basically - is absent or seriously deficient in the journals. In fact, that's the defining characteristic. So we have primary sources in unreliable journals - inappropriate on two levels. These citations neeed to go. Including them gives a false impression of validity to the publishers. Guy (Help!) 23:45, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
Yes it is very simple. Your deletions are obviously contentious (hence the number of complaints on your Talk page). Therefore, you should be discussing these deletions at the article Talk page before making them. DrChrissy (talk) 23:57, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
Those removing these kind of sources need to be more careful, as discussed above, and not leave statements that looked to be referenced by a later reference that does not support he statement. So either check that it is supported by the following reference, supply an alternate reference, add [citation needed], leave the reference if the author is a recognized expert, or remove the statement and the unreliable reference. If they only remove the reference and leave a dubious statement, it is a net negative to Wikipedia readers and writers. This sort of removal is akin to just deleting words that are spelled incorrectly without fixing them up. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:45, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
Oppose mass removal of text, and very dubious about mass removal of sources. If a source must be removed, then a "Citation needed" tag should be inserted to alert the rest of us to the unsourced statement. It is wrong and irresponsible to remove a source, leaving as Graeme Bartlett rightly says the wrong impression that a different source may apply. It is equally wrong, irresponsible and I suggest disruptive editing to remove both text and citation on the contentious grounds that the publisher of the journal is "predatory". It is undoubtedly despicable for publishers to squeeze money from scientists, but that does NOT AUTOMATICALLY mean the affected scientific papers are worthless, still less that all statements in such papers are unreliable. While I'd agree that the usual caveats about Primary Sources apply (a fortiori if peer review has been questionable), we can still make use of non-contentious parts of such papers, where they are summarizing well-known facts as background in particular. We really should not be running about deleting hundreds of cited paragraphs of text - whole sections sometimes - especially before discussion (such as this) has been completed. It is a shame to see experienced editors behaving in such a way, and it is a great waste of time for all other editors, as well as doing a great deal of damage to all the affected Wikipedia articles. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:49, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
I think you're missing the point. I know that being published in a predatory journal does not make the content automatically unreliable, but the source is unreliable: it lacks the necessary neutral peer-review. God knows that even real journals get bamboozled by people suggesting their own reviewers and so on, but these journals don't even try: they take the money and publish. There are numerous known examples of blatantly bogus publications (e.g. the Burzynski Clinic pushing out papers on its bogus "antineoplastons"). The point is that we cannot judge the difference - we're not allowed to. If a source does not have the quality controls that are required to make it reliable then we do not get to decide that some of the content is valid because we understand the subject and know it to be so. Wikipedia is designed precisely to stop that: we are not supposed to judge primary content ourselves, we are supposed to use reliable independent sources, and predatory journals inherently fail both those tests because there is no rigorous independent peer review. And that applies even if we think the content of the paper is unambiguously correct. Guy (Help!) 10:35, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
@JzG: primary sources are deprecated according to whom? Certainly not the policy you linked, which says no such thing. VQuakr (talk) 09:12, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
He might be thinking of WP:MEDRS, which (rightly) does warn against relying too heavily on primary sources, because of course claims made in reporting new science can be revised and criticized by other scientists, e.g. if they can't repeat the results or they find the methodology inadequate. But that is quite different from saying we must delete all primary-sourced material. We can use primary sources with care, reporting that new science occurred, with the implication that it might be revised. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:27, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
I agree with Chiswick Chap. Considering how much completely unreferenced material there is in Wikipedia, a mission to remove information cited to journals published by a particular publishing house that might have used less rigour in its evaluation than other publishers, seems unnecessary to me. Much of the information thus removed is uncontentious and only used by way of background. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:35, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
The solution to that is to reference the other material. It is absolutely clear that these are not reliable sources, so the only actual question is what to do about that. The options are: leave the unreliable sources, remove the unreliable sources and leave the text unsourced, or remove the unreliable sources and the text they support. I tried option 2 and people clearly preferred option 3. Option 1 is not in line with policy because the sources are unreliable.
You clearly think that does not matter. I disagree. I have seen papers published in these journals written by charlatans and promoting fraudulent cancer "cures". I know these to be fraudulent because there are many other sources showing them to be so. How do I know that any other publication in one of these junk journals is not fraudulent? How do we know if they are pushing an agenda and cannot get published in a proper journal? The simple fact is: we can't know without engaging in original research. The only sane policy is to exclude predatory journals.
Clearly a small number of valid papers might suffer. This is a result of the predatory journals doing exactly what they are trying to do: scamming academics into paying to get published. That is very sad, but it is not our problem to fix. The point of a journal as a reliable source is that it is peer-reviewed, and one of the signature features of predatory journals is that the peer review often looks no further than the credit card of the submitting author. That excludes them from use. Which leaves two optins: remove and leave uncited, or remove with the text they support. I'm happy with either. Guy (Help!) 10:24, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Delete text and delete references (after checking is there's a better source). Our task here is to reflect "accepted knowledge". It is incredible that people seem willing to defend information cited to known dodgy sources (and too often the kind of claims being pushed are of the "chutney may cure can cancer" variety). If some piece of information only appears in a suspect journal it is not fit for an encyclopedia. True, some of this stuff may prove to be okay in time but it NOT OUR JOB to try and sit in judgement over these; we need to wait to see if it picked up by true RS and so becomes the "accepted knowledgde" we are meant to be relaying. Alexbrn (talk) 09:49, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
That is far too much of a "blanket" (unthinking, mass action) response. We certainly need to REPLACE dodgy sources (though I do not agree with a statement like "if it's OMICS then it's not reliable", that is far too blunt). To replace sources decently takes work, which takes time. Therefore if we have to remove a source, we should remove the associated claim if and only if that source is the only one for that claim, i.e. the claim is part of the new thesis introduced by a scientific paper, and nobody else has yet repeated the experiment or observation. When a paper (in its overview section) reviews existing work, that is likely to be correct, and it is usually easy to find replacement sources, so it is frankly stupid to delete the text in such cases. Far better to mark it "citation needed" or "better source needed" so we can replace the ref with one from a decent publisher, that's all. I've done two such today. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:14, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
It's rare I'm a little bit at odds with other folks here that work within MEDRS a lot, but the case we're dealing with in the insect articles was that super basic non-controversial information (in a GA) happened to be sourced to an OMICS publication. The key thing for a non-MEDRS topic like this is results and conclusions from a primary paper shouldn't be in articles and even moreso if it's an OMICS publication. If it's more literature review-like information though (i.e. introduction section), immediate deletion probably isn't the way to go as there are a few other things to weigh that would be more conducive with flagging and talk page notification for regulars in the topic to figure out. I personally prefer to avoid primary introduction sections, but they have occasional use in non-MEDRS topics. If it's for MEDRS though, I'd be fine with a higher tendency to delete regardless of how the OMICS source is used. Kingofaces43 (talk) 23:57, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
  • If the goal here is to decide what to do with claims currently sourced to articles published by predatory journals, then I say we delete the text and the claim. If one can find a reliable source, or (highly unlikely) make the case that this particular paper is reliable, then the text can be restored. But I understand why Guy would remove just the source: He's not trying to alter contents, he's trying to do some housekeeping. Instead of whining about the way he's doing it try helping. I swear to god, the most frustrating thing I see here is people whining about other editors ruining the site instead of trying to improve the site themselves. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 14:39, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
  • delete text & source or tag - it doesn't matter - what matters is that local editors watching the article react, like this. Where red-flagged sources were used, WP:FIXIT with high quality sourcing. JzG is doing a huge service to the community here - I don't care if he removes stuff or tags it - the main thing is that local editors know they have a serious issue with the integrity of content in the affected article that they actually watch and work on. The integrity of our content is what matters and we have a ton of editing work to do. Unless you are arguing that articles from predatory journals should not be redflagged (and deleting or tagging them does the same thing in the workflow of editing Wikipedia articles) then I do not understand the fuss over the minutia of how Guy is doing this. Jytdog (talk) 16:53, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
    • If blanking sources that accurately WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT for material that is probably not wrong is a "huge service" – thus making it more likely that future editors will not recognize and therefore not investigage the dubious origin of this material – then leaving the sources present and tagging them with {{better source}} or {{Unreliable medical source}}, or even moving the text and the lousy source to the talk page, must be rated as an "absolutely enormous service". Blanking a source only "does the same thing in the workflow" if someone is actively maintaining the article at the time JzG blanks the source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:59, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
Exactly, unless JZG actually finishes the job and adds CN tags or removes the statements, he is merely hiding the fact that these statements are now unsourced. So unless other, more considerate users, realise the consequence of his edits leave misleading articles, it is a huge disservice to Wikipedia. And no, we can't just assume that other editors will do the job for him, that is simply lazy and irresponsible. FunkMonk (talk) 00:02, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

I came here via a notice on the psychology Wikiproject page. I would agree with those who say that Scientific Research Publishing journals shouldn't be used as sources. The whole set up is plainly suspect, and has been exploited by people putting forward false claims for public consumption. If the claim is non-controversial, there should be a better source for it. There is nothing to stop editors mining such articles' references for good sources. How those sources are removed is another matter. Perhaps tagging a citation with "suspect" and a relatively near date after which the material will be removed. This will give editors a chance to save that material which is OK. I am reluctant to criticise JdZ's actions because really, we should NOT be using such a source. OsFish (talk) 02:28, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

  • Delete bad references, possibly delete text I wouldn't hesitate to delete a reference that I'm confident is non-RS. What comes next depends on the statement it supports. If it's "The sky is blue", I'd be inclined to leave it unsourced. If it is plausible and seems weighted properly, then Citation Needed. If it seems wrong, seems overweighted, is potentially a hoax, or otherwise is a high-risk item, then I'd delete the whole thing. But I think that removing a bad source should always be the case. A statement that is wrong and "sourced" is always more dangerous than one that isn't. Geogene (talk) 21:30, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
"A statement that is wrong and "sourced" is always more dangerous than one that isn't." Not if the unsourced statement is immediately followed by another statement that is sourced, which hides the fact that the first statement has no source. And that's what we now have loads of as a result of these edits; unsourced statements masquerading as sourced ones. If other editors don't notice and fix each of these, the unsourced statements will stay there indefinitely. Much worse than before, when we could actually identify which statements that had iffy sourcing or not. FunkMonk (talk) 15:34, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Other predatory journals

It'd have been a courtesy posting a note about the present discussion in Talk:Scientific Research Publishing and also in Talk:Predatory open access publishing.

If the position of removing citations to predatory publishers prevails, it must be applied consistently. Should we include current predatory journals only or also past predatory journals too? If a journal is no longer considered predatory, do past articles remain black-listed? And when a journal becomes recognized as predatory, do we black-list only new articles?

I've taken the liberty of notifying affected parties:

fgnievinski (talk) 19:43, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

That is again such inappropriate use of article Talk pages! I am reverting those, and will discuss with you at your Talk page. Jytdog (talk) 20:06, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
Not sure why you're duplicating this discussion here then. fgnievinski (talk) 01:29, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
To answer your questions: we are not removing these as a punishment to the journal for being predatory, we are removing them because the journal's predatory practices fail to meet our standards for what makes a reliable source. So, if a journal was once legitimate but then falls into predatory ways, or if a once-predatory journal reforms and becomes legitimate, then the references that should be removed are the ones from the period when it was predatory. But if we're not sure, we should err on the side of not accepting sources we're not sure about, rather than allowing badly sourced claims to slip into the encyclopedia. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:25, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
Alright, so let's go ahead and remove citations to all other articles published in journals during the periods in which their publisher was considered predatory. fgnievinski (talk) 01:29, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
We should summarize the present consensus in either or both WP:RS#Predatory journals and WP:MEDRS#Predatory journals. fgnievinski (talk) 17:29, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
agree summarize the present consensus is best (WP:MEDRS#Predatory journals)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:55, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

DOIs

Thanks to @David Eppstein: above for pointing out that some predatory publishers can be identified by DOI. Here are two, including probably the worst, wiht the DOI linked to a search:

Perusing these articles finds a mountain of problems other than simply crap sources. Many, many vanity articles, a lot of WP:OR and so on. Guy (Help!) 10:38, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Slightly different tack

I have an academic interest in this subject as well as an interest as it relates to Wikipedia. While I think being placed on Beall's List is, generally, enough of a WP:REDFLAG to warrant severe skepticism with respect to the reliability of a source, there is actually a larger problem in academic publishing generally, as of late. This is the problem with distributed editorial control of journals and is generally the problem with even so-called "Gold Standard Open Access" as Beall puts it. The basic issue is that when one replaces a small, respected editorial board with a huge (sometimes numbering in the thousands) list of potential editors, niche subjects will end up in blind alleys with papers published that do not live up to any meaningful standard of reliability. This criticism has lately included journals that are very prestigious indeed including PlosOne (recently implicated in a problematic situation where they published creationist pseudoscience), Medicine (journal) (recently implicated in a problematic situation where they published acupuncture pseudoscience), as well as Scientific Reports (recently implicated in a problematic situation where they published Ayurveda pseudoscience).

The problem for Wikipedia is not with the "predatory open access" model, per se. After all, it is to the larger Wikipedia movement's benefit that academic publishing go the way of open access, and if a journal ends up being "predatory", that's really more a matter of the ethics of publishing than it is a question of quality. No doubt that a predatory journal is much more likely to be full of low quality nonsense, but it will also, unfortunately, be prone to include a few articles that are actually decent (though the citation rates are never liable to take off because, well, predatory journals essentially by definition never show up in the standard lit. review searches done by academics). Occasionally, superb articles are dug up from predatory journals and go on to be cited widely as being particularly precocious thought or perhaps having primacy. Unfortunately, what can often happen is such papers can become memory holed once the predatory publisher decides to close shop.

From Wikipedia's perspective, the real problem is actually one of (lack of proper) editorial control. That said, just because a journal lacks proper editorial control doesn't mean that every single paper published in the journal is garbage. The only way to really tell is to look at the staying power and citations. This should be done in any case, regardless of how prestigious the journal is in which the paper is published. The use of primary sources such as journal articles should only be done after they have been vetted by several independent external authorities. After all, the vast majority of papers published in Science (journal) or Nature (journal) contain analyses and claims that are later shown to be overstated if not completely incorrect. That's the name of the game in academic research and it's exactly why WP:PSTS is so important. Wikipedia should be a non-innovative source. It should not be on the cutting edge.

I think what is needed is a sort of skepticism flag that should fly whenever a paper is a) published in a low-impact or questionable venue, b) new, c) making audacious claims that have not been commented upon by many other experts. In those cases, it's okay to put the paper in a holding area to see what may come. Because, we are not supposed to guess as to what may come. This will mean that Wikipedia lags behind the cutting edge research that excites many, but I think this is the only practical way forward.

jps (talk) 18:16, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Low impact journals are one thing, predatory ones another. We often debate whether or not to include material in low-impact journals, or ones with an ideological bias (e.g. quackery-specific ones), but these predatory journals are subverting the entire process of academic publishing and we should not use them at all, especially as primary sources. Guy (Help!) 23:47, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
Actually in my view, the reviews in Frontiers are often really bad, reflecting authors' pet views as opposed to even trying to really grapple with the field, and because they are indeed secondary, their effect is more corrosive. Jytdog (talk) 01:59, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
"Occasionally, superb articles are dug up from predatory journals and go on to be cited widely as being particularly precocious thought or perhaps having primacy."
Can you please provide an example of such a widely cited article? Thanks. 2601:285:101:7076:28D4:5471:9D6E:5720 (talk) 12:58, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
It depends, of course, on what we mean by "predatory". Beall's list is basically too new for this to have occurred since he started his Sisyphean task. However, there are certain journals which I have reason to believe may have been identified as "predatory" if that classification had existed at the time (and, to be fair, may have moved away from that designation since then, but are still "low impact"). There is an excellent paper from Current Science written in the 1980s that has a significant number of citations, for example. jps (talk) 15:34, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
So, no example to back up the claim. Got it. 2600:380:5730:4739:F9E3:A81F:9D73:7377 (talk) 02:53, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
Current Science 51: 1096–1099. jps (talk) 10:44, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
Do you have a citation for Current Science being a predatory journal? It does not appear to be on the list, nor identified as predatory in its Wikipedia article. They post occasional editorials about predatory journals, though, and their general advice is "... as practising researchers we may help the (scientific) community by spreading awareness about the problem (of predatory journals) and by consciously not citing papers published in such journals." So, at least they're scolding those who cite them. 2601:283:4301:D3A6:D0E0:3E67:D5AD:91EF (talk) 21:01, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
So, back to no example to back up the claim. 2601:283:4301:D3A6:ECA7:CBFA:3732:E0B0 (talk) 15:37, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Primary, secondary, tertiary

The wording of guidelines changes over time by WP:RS currently says:

Wikipedia articles should be based mainly on reliable secondary sources, i.e., a document or recording that relates or discusses information originally presented elsewhere. [...]
Primary sources are often difficult to use appropriately. Although they can be both reliable and useful in certain situations, they must be used with caution in order to avoid original research. Although specific facts may be taken from primary sources, secondary sources that present the same material are preferred. Large blocks of material based purely on primary sources should be avoided. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors.

That, plus the lack of proper peer-review in predatory journals leading to the ability of agenda-driven authors to publish bullshit (OMICS has published anti-vax papers promoting the refuted vaccine-autism link, for example) means that I cannot see any defensible policy-based objection to removing these sources. Guy (Help!) 00:17, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

"I cannot see..." I have cited you policy, Guy, above (23:50, 5 March 2016 (UTC)). You either remove the statements, or you flag them for maintenance. You should not just remove the sources. Please follow the policy written by others who have been here longer than you. And when you do see the light, go back and repair the damage you have done. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 03:26, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
Citing policy is fine and dandy, but your citation does not imply any duty to remove or flag content when bad sources are removed. Sure, just removing the sources leaves the article in a less than perfect state, but so might removing good content sourced to bad sources. And both are better than any content sourced to bad sources, because that a) is a bad precedent and b) gives a false sense of reliability. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:26, 7 March 2016 (UTC) (someone who has been here longer than both Guy and you, but much longer than you - not that that is a good argument)
"Duty" is a legal word. If you want to edit Wikipedia, follow the WP policy. The meaning of the policy is not ambiguous.
  • Template:Verify source "If {a statement} is not doubtful, use Citation needed (or Cite quote) to request a citation to improve the article's verifiability."
  • Wikipedia:Verifiability: "Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source. Whether and how quickly material should be initially removed for not having an inline citation to a reliable source depends on the material and the overall state of the article. In some cases, editors may object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references; consider adding a citation needed tag as an interim step.[3] When tagging or removing material for lacking an inline citation, please state your concern that it may not be possible to find a published reliable source for the content, and therefore it may not be verifiable.[4] If you think the material is verifiable, you are encouraged to provide an inline citation yourself before considering whether to remove or tag it."
Nothing in WP policy suggests or justifies removing the source and leaving a statement without source and without maintenance tag. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 18:13, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
"Duty" is a normal English word. Nothing in your quote suggests or implies that one needs to remove content with sources. You seem to fall for a classical affirming the consequent. I agree that it's better to also remove or tag content, but it is not required. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:34, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
With your agreement that "it's better to also remove or tag content," you and I are in sufficient agreement that removing the source without maint. tagging is a non-optimum approach to WP editing. However "great" the service others may believe Guy is performing for the Encyclopedia, you and I agree that he could be doing "better" with very little effort on his part. Given that fact, Guy's refusal to do the standard thing is somewhat curious. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 18:49, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
Everybody gets to decide how to spend their limited volunteer time to improve the project. It's only "very little effort" if you blindly attach cn's, which also is sub-optimal. Once you try to understand what's being said and what's being supported by other sources, it's easily 2-3 times more work than just removing the bad sources. I'm a big fan of curiosity, but I don't share this particular one, and I'm not sure hat you want to accomplish with stating yours in this case. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:01, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
I hold that Guy is damaging the Encyclopedia by these actions. Consider the statement: Cows with black spots eat grass and play the piano.[1][2] Source [1] states that cows eat grass, and source [2] says cows play the piano. Guy edits the page and deletes source [2] because it cites a predatory journal. Now we have the statement, Cows with black spots eat grass and play the piano.[1] It is a false statement that falsely cites source [1]. No other editor knows there is a problem with the statement until years later, some professional cow specialist dives into the source (from the university library), reads it end-to-end, and discovers that the statement ("play the piano") is nowhere in source [1]. How the heck did that happen? It looks like vandalism. But it was apparently well-sourced because Guy did only half the job and left chaos in his wake. And how many people have been miseducated about cows in the meantime? Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 19:20, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
How is that in any way worse than the original situation? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:53, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
First let us consider: How is it in any better? In both cases, before and after Guy has done his thing, the Encyclopedia contains the false statement with no clue to the casual reader or the experienced editor that the information is in doubt. On the other hand, the CN tag tells the reader that the statement may be a wild hair: DO NOT USE THIS STATEMENT AS ESTABLISHED FACT. The CN tag also tells the experienced editor that the statement is waiting for an RS, and exactly how long. As the policy says, that is the purpose of the CN tag. The architects of WP do not suggest or advocate -- or perhaps even consider -- that the Encyclopedia is improved by stripping it of sources, even bad sources. This is Guy's invention, and it is a bad one.
We could compare Guy's action to a janitor inspecting theater chairs and removing any legs he found to be faulty because he didn't want the chairs collapsing during use -- then putting the 3-legged chairs back in service without warning signs. Do you see anything wrong with that plan? We expect that janitor to post a sign, like THIS CHAIR NOT FIT FOR USE. Like the theater is for theater goers, the Encyclopedia is for readers. Without warning signs, users get hurt. (See Band aid solution: Hasty solution that covers up the symptoms but does little or nothing to mitigate the underlying problem. See also quick fix.") Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 20:20, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
@Sfarney: We seem to be at cross-purposes. I fully agree that either the text goes or the text is tagged as unsourced. The problem with tagging is the suggestion that the unreliable sources simply be tagged as unreliable, which experience indicates will never get fixed. Guy (Help!) 22:53, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Proposal

I now propose to resume removal of citations to OMICS, as arguably the most prominent predatory publisher with large numbers of cites on Wikipedia. Based on the discussions above I propose to follow this process:

  1. Where the source is redundant, the OMICS cite can simply be removed.
  2. Where a fact is sourced solely to an OMICS journal as a primary source I will remove it.
  3. If this is reverted (most are not, 3 out of all the articles edited to date if I recall correctly), I will replace the cite with {{citation needed}} and note on the Talk page.
  4. I will review each item and make all edits manually, not using AWB or any other automation tool.

I think that reflects the concerns raised. Guy (Help!) 23:01, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

OPPOSEIf a claim is truly supported by two sources, one good and one bad, by all means remove the bad source. But to know if the claim is truly supported by two sources, you have to read and understand the good source. If the source is too technical for you to understand, written in a language you don't understand, behind a paywall that you don't have a subscription to, or in a paper source that is not in your local library, you don't know if the OMICS citation is redundant or not.
If a claim is only supported by an OMICS journal, that alone does not justify removing the claim. Well-known facts that can easily be verified, like "Paris is the capital of France" do not need a citation. You could just remove the citation and leave the claim.
Also, it is considered a best practice, before removing a citation to an unreliable source, to attempt to find a reliable source that supports the claim.
Finally, whether to remove a claim for which no reliable source can easily be found, or to mark it with {{citation needed}}, depends on how unlikely or potentially harmful the claim is. If the claim seems more likely than not to be true, and isn't likely to cause any harm, it can just be marked with {{citation needed}}, and then removed after a suitable period of time. Jc3s5h (talk) 23:14, 7 March 2016 (UTC) (Added that I oppose the proposal at 23:42 UTC.)
Support as amplified by Jc3s5h (talk · contribs) Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 23:21, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
If there are two sources, one paywalled and the other not, then the paywalled source is not a predatory open access publisher. I will remove the predatory open access publisher. If the other source is also questionable, that is a separate issue. It's not necessary to understand the material in a manifestly unreliable source in order to remove it, it probably is necessary to understand the material in an apparently relaible source in order to remove it.
Facts sourced solely to unreliable sources are removed from Wikipedia all the time. Most such removals are not challenged. Where they are, WP:BRD applies, which is what I am proposing to do. My initial view was in line with yours, but there exists a group of editors who think that a source being removed means the text must also be removed, hence the proposal to allow restoration and discuss if challenged. There's no need to add bureaucracy to a housekeeping task, IMO. Ther eare hundreds of these and if a dozen others want to help then we can search for replacement sources but if they don't then I am going to fix the here-and-now problem of predatory sources. Guy (Help!) 23:33, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
I now oppose the proposal because I am convinced the proposer is determined to do a slap-dash job, without bothering to read other supporting sources or making any effort to independently verify the claim, even if the claim seems fairly likely. Jc3s5h (talk) 23:45, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
Well, then you go it. With the time and effort spend on this discussion, the problem should vanish shortly... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:00, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
Question Shouldn't this issue be raised at the Talk page of the article in question? The article watchers will likely have a much better idea idea about the quality of the journal. For example, a huge issue (and rightly so) is whether there is adequate peer-review. Article watchers are likely to have a much better idea, or even experience, of the level of peer review and overall quality than a single editor leaping from one diverse subject area to another. DrChrissy (talk) 15:59, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

There is no requirement to read other sources in detail in order to remove an unreliable source, because it's an unreliable source and it shouldn't be there in the first place. To be absolutely clear here: I was not asking for your approval. It is absolutely clear that these sources are inappropriate, the only quesiton is what to do after they are removed. Requiring in-depth research before removing text that has no reliable source constitutes an arbitrary demand for shrubberies. Guy (Help!) 23:18, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Guy, are you serious about this posting? DrChrissy (talk) 23:28, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
This sounds like an argument for leaving 3-legged chairs in the theater without warning signs. Removing a source without handling the text is so bizarre, the WP policy does not imagine it. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 00:00, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
To answer this question again, the WP standard action is to remove the text or tag it for CN. There is no third option to leave the text hanging out like an undisputed statement. WP cannot be edited with the intelligence and discrimination of a 'bot. If you don't know the subject and the sources well enough to make an intelligent change, don't touch it. Go to the talk page and note it for someone who knows the area. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 00:28, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
Suggestion: where two sources are commingled, I believe it's better to tag the citation to non-RS with [unreliable source?] so if someone can untangle the two, they'd know which source is unreliable. If the OP simply removes the unreliable source, it would look like the statement (of unknown accuracy, as previously in part supported by a non RS), is now all kosher. This could be misleading. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:02, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

When removing unreliable sources it's ordinarily best to remove the now-uncited material, but not always. WP:V sez "Attribute all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged to a reliable, published source" -- the key consideration is "challenged or likely to be challenged." In a contrived example if the statement "most humans have five fingers on each hand" is sourced to SCIRP or OMICS, it wouldn't improve Wikipedia to remove that statement along with the citation. Editing is not always black-and-white with unambiguous rules, much as that would make our lives easier. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:30, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

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