I was recently (late September 2024) delighted to receive an invitation, to publish for ‘a distinguished organisation that publishes remarkable, double-blind peer-reviewed, internationally acknowledged journals with global prominence’. This invitation started as:

“I am writing this after reading your commendable research papers online. Yesterday, I went through the remarkable findings of your research '"' and "Maximin Power Designs in Testing Lack of Fit". They engaged me as they demonstrated your insightful understanding of the subject as well as their exploration of hitherto untouched dimensions. I also tried reaching you when I read your paper "A Note on Minimax Robustness of Designs against Correlated or Heteroscedastic Responses".’

After analysing your research, I found that it matches the scope of our journal. I have shared it with our community of scientists. Without giving a second thought, our editorial board and management have agreed to recognise you as an invited author.”

Wow! An invitation to publish! And just the right venue to highlight my remarkable research. (But note the first empty pair of quotation marks – it seems that only two of the three blanks were filled in. Couldn’t they have found a third set of ‘remarkable findings’?)

This journal -- London Journal of Research in Science: Natural and Formal -- is on Beall’s dishearteningly long list of potential predatory publishers, and this got my back up.

As background: We donate regularly to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) – also known in Canada as Doctors Without Borders (DWB), but had recently made a special, one-time donation since things are so awful, everywhere, right now. This invitation to publish coincidentally came immediately after that. I mentioned it to my wife, who suggested submitting a ‘paper’ about MSF.  So I wrote A Note on the Linguistic and Statistical Equivalence of MSF and DWB and submitted it. (My wife declined the offer of a co-authorship.)

If you read the paper don’t expect it to make any sense. The Introduction is taken from MSF/DWB brochures, followed by a Theorem from a Spatial Design paper I wrote some years ago, followed by the ‘immediate’ corollary that The notions MSF and DWB are linguistically and statistically equivalent. Then more MSF/DWB publicity. The ‘proof’ in the next section consists of two proofs cobbled together from some of my earlier work, completely unrelated to the Theorem or to each other. Note the line in the ‘proof’ that ‘it is now somewhat evident that …’. Having been weaned on the writings of Peter Huber, I’ve always wanted to use this infuriating phrase.

I usually worry that my submissions will be rejected out-of-hand without refereeing, but within hours it was announced on the journal website that mine was being refereed. In the meantime, I was contacted again and offered a ‘Rosalind membership’ – this is mentioned on various websites, but no one seems to know what it is, or if it has any alleged value. But it must have value if they think I might want it!

I spent a week anxiously awaiting the results of the review. Finally they came. Two of them, within a week-- why can’t my other publishers be so efficient? -- and they were both glowing! Some excerpts:

“The article describes that In (sic) this invited paper we establish the linguistic and statistical equivalencies between the notions MSF and DWB. The consequences are examined, with illustrative examples. And, I certainly agree with it.”

“This paper, titled 'A Note on the Linguistic and Statistical Equivalence of MSF and DWB,' finally addresses the problem of research in Research in Science: Natural and Formal. The approach is well-described in the paper. The approach shows most excellent results across the board. This is a revolution in the making. The paper is lucidly and elegantly written.”

“The evaluation shows the full benefits of the approach. The author(s) do a great effort in explaining the results; their novel usage of the particular points clearly demonstrates how the few outliers can be easily attributed. Overall, this is solid and significant work.”

“The bibliography by itself could make a publication of its own.”

“Thanks to the clear writing and the instructions provided, this reviewer was able to reproduce all results. Approach turns out be simple, yet so novel and convincing.”

But there was a sobering note. It seems that, even for an invited article such as mine, lending untold prestige to the journal, there are publication fees! I’m sure NSERC would hesitate over a charge of $1126 (US) for this -- I won’t even ask them. Perhaps they would at least be relieved that there was a reduction from $1872 -- “since your country comes under Research Promotion Zone by Royal Journal Press Private Limited and your invitation status, you are eligible for a waiver in publishing.”

By late October, they were getting quite insistent about the money. They said I might even lose my waiver! I keep telling them that I can’t submit the invoice to my granting agency until there is a publication-ready copy for them to see. I did then receive a very badly typeset version. Of course I complained – given that “We feel highly delighted to associate with a renowned researcher like you …”, you’d think they would take more care. They took it to heart and ‘Dr. Vivian’ replied “Let me forward it to a senior typesetter. Apologies for the inconvenience caused.” An improved version soon arrived.

It’s November now, and the ‘preview’ version --Vol. 24, Issue 14 -- of the journal has appeared, containing my paper and three others. I guess it’s time to break the news to them that I did indeed submit the invoice to my ‘granting agency’, which balked at the price and said that

“In view of the invited nature of this paper, and the spectacular but richly deserved reviews -- “a revolution in the making”, no less – we feel that the Journal should be paying you. They should feel fortunate that someone such as yourself, with a record of publishing in (as we see from your bibliography) such stellar outlets as Journal of Statistical Musings and Statistical Flavours would publish in LJRS.

We have supported your research for over thirty years, and so expect to share in the good fortune of London Journal of Research. We will commence negotiations with them, and send them an invoice once we have all agreed on proper compensation for your largesse in allowing them to share in your ‘finally address[ing] the problem of research in Research in Science: Natural and Formal’. Once we receive the funds from LJRS we will remit 2/3 to you.”

That’s more like it. All these years of struggling to give my ideas away for free, and now I might be paid for them!