Computer Generated Papers Get Accepted For Conference
from the oops dept
In the last couple of months, I've started receiving requests addressed to Dr. Masnick asking me to submit papers to random and oddly named conferences. While there are a few Dr. Masnicks out there (some of whom are closely related), I've never made it that high up the academic food chain. I've been ignoring the emails assuming they were simply from confused individuals, but it seems like plenty of others have been receiving similar requests. One grad student at MIT got so fed up with the requests that he wrote a fake research paper generator and submitted some of the results -- which were accepted to these conferences. While the post linked from here suggests that the reviewers of the submissions aren't being very careful, you have to wonder if this is something of a scam -- like the various "Who's Who" books where they try to get people to buy these books that will just list anyone who pays.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
