A year later: what is a predatory publisher anyways?

Reading time: 10-12 minutes
In this article:

• "Predatory publishing" is an overly-vague term
• Poll 2023: What is a predatory publisher anyways?
• Moving past the word "predatory"
  • Vampire press (similar to "vanity press")
  • Rent-seeker / Rent-extractor
  • Scam

​Edit Feb 15th 2023: added term "vanity press" to Vampire press section to highlight similarities and distinctions in use between the two terms.
Edit Mar 25th 2023: moved Twitter vs. Mastodon tangent to "p.s." section

A year ago I wrote a blogpost called "What is a predatory publisher anyways?" In that post I looked at the origin of the term in 2012, and what it meant at its inception. I held a Twitter poll, gathering ~175 respondents from across the spectrum that asked people's opinions on whether various publishing groups were "predatory."

​SPOILERS: I just redid the poll in Jan 2023 on both Twitter and Mastodon.

The aim of that poll was not only to get a sense of publisher reputations, but to look at what are the behaviours of publishers that people associate with "predatory publishing." What did I learn in 2021? Well... not exactly what I expected (fun!).

NOVEMBER 2021 RESULTS asking the question: "What is your opinion of _____?" with the four options listed.

"Predatory publishing" is an overly-vague term

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