ACSNano on Problematic Papers

The editorial board at ACSNano has come out with a statement on how they'd like problematic papers to be handled. This, the article most pointedly does not say, is surely a response to the controversy over a recent (ridiculously Photoshopped) paper that appeared in the journal. That one didn't make anyone look good, and I can see why the editors felt that they had to make an effort. The piece is superficially reasonable. They're asking that if someone sees a paper with questionable content, that they should contact the journal first, which I think is good practice in any case. But then we have this: In the end, a decision will be made, ranging from notification that no cause was found to support the accusations made, corrections to a published article, retraction of the article, and/or to notifying the authors’ institutions of such actions. At ACS Nano, we take scientific fraud seriously and, as needed, retract articles and place sanctions on authors for set numbers of years, including bans on further submissions. The difference between this formalized accusation investigation and reports in blogs or on Twitter is that, during the investigation, the authors of the article under dispute have a fair chance to explain, and the decisions are made by known experts in the field. After we have made our decision, all are welcome to comment on it in any blog, even if they have different opinions; this is their privilege. We strongly suggest that such comments be made without the c...
Source: In the Pipeline - Category: Chemists Tags: The Scientific Literature Source Type: blogs