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I flagged two research papers for fake authors and both were accepted as orals

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Re: I flagged two research papers for fake authors and both were accepted as orals

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "Chinese social credit" system is vastly overblown. I'm living here (China, Beijing and Jiangsu) now, and there are exactly two cases in the past eight months where the "social credit" system has had any impact at all: - To open "take first pay after" vending machines. These are vending machines which are basically big locked fridges; if your credit score is high enough, you can open the machines, take whatever d…

But you're talking about Beijing and Jiangsu. If you go to Xinjiang, bad score can get you literally imprisoned and tortured.

It's funny how non-Chinese people explain to Chinese people how things work in China.

Re: I flagged two research papers for fake authors and both were accepted as orals

#162
post #82
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So wrist slap?

I don't know if you know what you're talking about, but in my area, this could easily result in losing your job. You probably don't want to throw someone in jail for one plagiarized paper, so between jail time and losing your job, I don't know what else you have.

What is your area? I publish in AI (mainly IJCAI/AAAI, MLJ and some smaller conferences) and had one of my rejected papers copy/pasted into a new submission to a different conference without my consent. When I asked for the copy to be retracted a new paper was written, also based on my paper, to replace the copy of my paper without telling the conference. When I complained to the conference the new paper was sent to the reviewers of the first copy (which had been accepted before the new paper was written) with a note "explaining" a mistake had been made and then the new paper was also accepted to the conference. I reported all this to the integrity team at the host institution and there was an informal investigation which found that there had been "some level plagiarism" (sic) but it was only poor academic practice, not misconduct and there would be no disciplinary consequences. Right now we're at the point where I'm waiting for Springer, who publish the conference proceedings, to also sweep it all under the rug and let me know that publishing a copy of a copy of my paper meets their high scholarly standards.

Plagiarism brings a slap on the wrist unless the case is very high profile, like the example posted by azan_20 in the sibling where the plagiarising academic had many accolades and a big reputation. If the target or source of plagiarism is not famous it's like stealing bikes.

And of course if you're a senior academic being accused of misconduct by a less senior academic you can LOL about it because it's all a big joke and the less senior academic is the one who'll get a hit to their reputation for making a fuss and rocking the boat.

Re: I flagged two research papers for fake authors and both were accepted as orals

#163
post #80

“…because conferences have made it mandatory to review 4-5 papers if you submit to them.” Is that really a thing? So if I submit a legit paper it is being reviewed forcefully by a bunch of random people from god knows where?

That's correct. And 4–5 is low-balling. I was forced to review 7 papers. Now, how are these papers chosen for you? You get to bid on which to review. Bid on 30 papers out of 30,000. I got none of those, and I had to review 7 papers I wasn't really competent enough to review.

For me at that point it's OK to give the paper a quick read, write a few words on what it's about and whether the paper looks well written and so on, explain it's outside my area of expertise and give a weak accept with low confidence.

So basically leave it up to the Area Chair. It still helps them a bit that you give the paper a quick once over and flag it up if it's somehow complete crap. The problem is that I'm probably missing the chance to review papers I'd be really interested in and that I could help to improve.

I guess it's a bit ridiculous that AI conferences in particular can't find a systematic way to route papers to subject matter experts. I guess the usual system with area and sub-area keywords is overwhelmed by the extreme increase in numbers. This year AAAI made link to my Google Scholar and DBLP, link my top five papers, and add some more info about my subject to my profile; and they still failed to rate the papers that were really relevant as most relevant. At least the bidding pool was a bit smaller this time so I guess they're trying to work something out.

Meanwhile submission numbers are exploding and I fear all the conferences can do is try to play catch up.

Re: I flagged two research papers for fake authors and both were accepted as orals

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t China doing something like this ? Wonder if it could degrade to something worse than the status quo where reputations are falsely tarnished by competitors purely as a weapon to get ahead…

The "Chinese social credit" system is vastly overblown. I'm living here (China, Beijing and Jiangsu) now, and there are exactly two cases in the past eight months where the "social credit" system has had any impact at all: - To open "take first pay after" vending machines. These are vending machines which are basically big locked fridges; if your credit score is high enough, you can open the machines, take whatever d…

I haven’t seen normal pay first vending machines anywhere but airports. I’m in Chengdu ATM, but there is usually a family mart or Lawsons to go to anyways.

Re: I flagged two research papers for fake authors and both were accepted as orals

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "Chinese social credit" system is vastly overblown. I'm living here (China, Beijing and Jiangsu) now, and there are exactly two cases in the past eight months where the "social credit" system has had any impact at all: - To open "take first pay after" vending machines. These are vending machines which are basically big locked fridges; if your credit score is high enough, you can open the machines, take whatever d…

But you're talking about Beijing and Jiangsu. If you go to Xinjiang, bad score can get you literally imprisoned and tortured.

How many times have you been to Xinjiang? I’ve only been once, and didn’t notice any credits scoring going on even among Uighurs. I get that something bad must be going on sometimes, and maybe north Xinjiang (more populated, more Han) is a lot different from south Xinjiang (more Uighur), but if you visited Urumqi or Kashgar tomorrow, or even lived there, you probably wouldn’t notice much.

Re: I flagged two research papers for fake authors and both were accepted as orals

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What social factors do you imagine affect your credit score in the US?

Like if you're arrested for some misdemeanor, that goes on your social credit score. If you're caught peeing in public your social credit score basically goes to zero (registered sex offender).

That won’t affect your credit score, although many housing and employment concerns will run a background check and that can ruin your life.

Re: I flagged two research papers for fake authors and both were accepted as orals

#167
post #138
post #2

At this point, in the field of AI research: - papers are written by AI (as pointed out in this article, and as obvious to anyone who spends a while actually reading recent AI research) - papers are reviewed by AI (NeurIPS is doing an AI assisted review experiment - https://neurips.cc/Conferences/2026/ai-reviewing-experiment - and I feel the trend is moving towards AI reviewers whether we like it or not) - papers are…

Human reviewers were not what they were made out to be. They would approve you if you cited them, they would disapprove you if your work questioned the validity of their work.

Some reviewers are like that, but not most.

Re: I flagged two research papers for fake authors and both were accepted as orals

#168
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like if you're arrested for some misdemeanor, that goes on your social credit score. If you're caught peeing in public your social credit score basically goes to zero (registered sex offender).

And neither of those will affect your US financial credit score

China also keeps separate scores but we just refer to them all together as a social credit score.

Re: I flagged two research papers for fake authors and both were accepted as orals

#169
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even monkeys have society and they tend to only throw poo at those who have done wrong by that society. Monkeys have and try to maintain reputations.

Is it reputation or hierarchical standing or just "power" within the society what makes them not throw poo tho

I'm not sure what you mean, but not throwing poo is the default behavior. They only do it when feeling stressed, or zoo settings they might even do it to get a reaction from the crowd. Figuratively speaking, no different than humans.

Re: I flagged two research papers for fake authors and both were accepted as orals

#170
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you know what you're talking about, but in my area, this could easily result in losing your job. You probably don't want to throw someone in jail for one plagiarized paper, so between jail time and losing your job, I don't know what else you have.

What is your area? I publish in AI (mainly IJCAI/AAAI, MLJ and some smaller conferences) and had one of my rejected papers copy/pasted into a new submission to a different conference without my consent. When I asked for the copy to be retracted a new paper was written, also based on my paper, to replace the copy of my paper without telling the conference. When I complained to the conference the new paper was sent to…

> Plagiarism brings a slap on the wrist unless the case is very high profile, like the example posted by azan_20 in the sibling where the plagiarising academic had many accolades and a big reputation. If the target or source of plagiarism is not famous it's like stealing bikes.

I'd like to clarify - the very high profile case did not even get wrist slap and Cambridge is actually defending him.

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