zlacker

It's interesting the instance cited about authors of a scientific paper being compelled to remove a reference because a peer reviewer alleged that the researcher behind it is "a lousy and dishonest researcher". What's more interesting is that PLOS ONE repeated the allegation. I am curious whether there is a case for defamation for the publication of such an allegation.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/peerReview?id=10.1...

I've certainly had peer reviewers trying to get me to cite their own papers in my articles, however I've never seen an instance where a peer reviewer alleged that an article I've cited was by someone disreputable.

>>murphy+(OP)
> I've certainly had peer reviewers trying to get me to cite their own papers in my articles, however I've never seen an instance where a peer reviewer alleged that an article I've cited was by someone disreputable.

I have recommended some citations to be removed as a reviewer. It’s not useful to keep citing discredited articles that should have been retracted. Keeping them in new articles just makes them more likely to be read uncritically and further propagate bullshit.

OTOH, the argument is “the article is rubbish”, not some kind of as hominem attack because I don’t like the main author.

>>kergon+TA
I can see encouraging authors to remove "zombie citations", but that should be rare nowadays, as many bibliographic databases will automatically flag retracted articles now, thanks to integration with the Retraction Watch database.

>>murphy+5D1
Hopefully, yes. But there are a lot of articles that should be retracted, but that won’t be because of editorial policies or the fact that nobody actually cares.