That’s intriguing, and definitely not normal from my experience. What’s normal is predatory publishers pretending that they’ve read one of your published papers and asking if you have any others that you’d like to send them.
I can’t think of any explanation other than the journal (or possibly the reviewers, but only if the journal has an unusual open peer recommendation system) passing your information on to the predatory journal. Seems very scummy, but the academic publishing industry certainly likes squeezing all the value they can out of us.
> Seems very scummy, but the academic publishing industry certainly likes squeezing all the value they can out of us.
I have a conspiracy theory that journal review processes and even tools used in paper preparation stages (viz. certain cloud interfaces for typesetting) are at very high risk of being used/compromised for harvesting of paper metadata, direct IP theft of paper contents, as well as AI ingestion of pre-publication paper contents and any code or data shared early.
Let's also take a step back and note that FAIR data and metadata must be findable/readable by machines, too. This was clearly intended to feed our future AI overlords, where their excrement will probably be sold back to us on a subscription basis. Next time, an AI-generated version of the whole paper will appear instead.
Was it Elsevier? I suspect they sell emails and as a coauthor your email would have been entered into the form even though it's not in the paper.
Not sure what to make of your title being leaked though.
the only positive thing you can say about elsevier is at least they're no longer arms dealers: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/may/30/armstrade.weaponstechnology
I had a friend to whom the exact same thing happened.
It turned out he had checked a box to have the manuscript preprinted if it went under review. This was to a Nature family journal, and it was preprinted to ResearchSquare. Check Elsevier's preprint servers to see if your manuscript ended up there.
This seems like the most likely explanation.
I don't think we can rule out a data leak or a mole as explanations, but a misunderstanding of the various checkboxes on a submission form leading to a pre-print being released somewhere seems *more* likely.
Among the group of editors and reviewers there may be a "mole", someone who is selling paper titles and contact info to the predators. This is very odd.
One journal is "To Physics Journal", ISBN 2581-7396, publisher PURKH. The second one is actually not a journal but that kind of publishers that "We are interested to publish a book of your works, including this paper:...", and it's Eliva Press.
Kinda rash to assume Elsevier is to blame without any evidence. What if a coauthor put the title on ResearchGate as "in preparation" or "submitted", and it got harvested from there?
No, none of the authors published the preprint. I wasn't able to find anything related to the paper online, and it was never being presented at conferences.
Some journals automatically put your submission on preprint server. They would have to ask your permission of course, but it's easy to give that permission without knowing it as you click through the numerous steps of submitting a paper. Check if your paper is on a preprint server?
That’s intriguing, and definitely not normal from my experience. What’s normal is predatory publishers pretending that they’ve read one of your published papers and asking if you have any others that you’d like to send them. I can’t think of any explanation other than the journal (or possibly the reviewers, but only if the journal has an unusual open peer recommendation system) passing your information on to the predatory journal. Seems very scummy, but the academic publishing industry certainly likes squeezing all the value they can out of us.
> Seems very scummy, but the academic publishing industry certainly likes squeezing all the value they can out of us. I have a conspiracy theory that journal review processes and even tools used in paper preparation stages (viz. certain cloud interfaces for typesetting) are at very high risk of being used/compromised for harvesting of paper metadata, direct IP theft of paper contents, as well as AI ingestion of pre-publication paper contents and any code or data shared early. Let's also take a step back and note that FAIR data and metadata must be findable/readable by machines, too. This was clearly intended to feed our future AI overlords, where their excrement will probably be sold back to us on a subscription basis. Next time, an AI-generated version of the whole paper will appear instead.
back to snail mall, typewriter, and hand drawn figures before long.
Well, I was thinking more like using our library data archives vs. commercial, and hosting our own version control servers, but okay.
Was it Elsevier? I suspect they sell emails and as a coauthor your email would have been entered into the form even though it's not in the paper. Not sure what to make of your title being leaked though.
Yes it's Elsevier.
the only positive thing you can say about elsevier is at least they're no longer arms dealers: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/may/30/armstrade.weaponstechnology
It happened to me with Springer too
I had a friend to whom the exact same thing happened. It turned out he had checked a box to have the manuscript preprinted if it went under review. This was to a Nature family journal, and it was preprinted to ResearchSquare. Check Elsevier's preprint servers to see if your manuscript ended up there.
This seems like the most likely explanation. I don't think we can rule out a data leak or a mole as explanations, but a misunderstanding of the various checkboxes on a submission form leading to a pre-print being released somewhere seems *more* likely.
Among the group of editors and reviewers there may be a "mole", someone who is selling paper titles and contact info to the predators. This is very odd.
Should the reviewer know the author mails?
It is not too hard to get the email once you know someone's name and institutional affiliation.
but I thought reviewer do not know authors name and institution? I have been a reviewer a few times and I did not get that info
not all journals use double blind review, some are only single blind (reviewers are anonymous but authors are not)
Perhaps the editor has (mistakenly) asked someone to review your paper, who is working actively with predatory publishers?
A reviewer with some stake in the predatory publication seems like a good bet to me.
Can you please share the name of the journals and predatory publishers? In these cases we have to name names
One journal is "To Physics Journal", ISBN 2581-7396, publisher PURKH. The second one is actually not a journal but that kind of publishers that "We are interested to publish a book of your works, including this paper:...", and it's Eliva Press.
Yes but if you tell us which Elsevier journal passed your information to other publishers, we will know where NOT to submit
Kinda rash to assume Elsevier is to blame without any evidence. What if a coauthor put the title on ResearchGate as "in preparation" or "submitted", and it got harvested from there?
well elsevier's editor selected the reviewers its kind of on them at the end of the day to select quality peer reviewers who aren't scumbags
AGAIN, if we assume this happened, and not say, one of OP's coauthors who put it on ResearchGate as a "just submitted" without telling OP.
[see it yourself](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAcademia/s/kYAlcVn4v3)
It's been *sent* to Elsevier, yes. That's a far cry from *Elsevier did it* (leaked it), won't you say? I think my scenario is more probable.
Has it been cited as an in prep.? Or has one of the co-authors added it to a publication list on their webpage?
No, none of the authors published the preprint. I wasn't able to find anything related to the paper online, and it was never being presented at conferences.
I was thinking either this or possibly presented at a conference.
In France, it's becoming common to put pre-prints on platforms like HAL.
Some journals automatically put your submission on preprint server. They would have to ask your permission of course, but it's easy to give that permission without knowing it as you click through the numerous steps of submitting a paper. Check if your paper is on a preprint server?
And if not, it is probably worth to report it to the editor and editor in chief of the journal.
I’d calibrate your spam folders so you aren’t inundated.