Peter Suber - Google+ - More on how scam journals are giving OA a bad name In…

"In September of this year, +Jeffrey Beall published "Predatory publishers are corrupting open access," Nature, September 12, 2012 . On November 28, someone posted a comment on the article, allegedly from me, accusing Beall of blackmailing publishers by charging a fee to keep them off his list of predatory publishers . The comment was a fraud. I didn't write it, and I don't buy its accusation for a second. On the contrary, I deplore it. Unfortunately I didn't know about the comment until today when Nature contacted me. It had reasons to think that some of the comments criticizing Beall were falsely attributed. I thank Nature for checking with me directly, and for taking down the comment as soon as it learned that I didn't write it. I'm only sorry that I didn't see it sooner. If I saw it the day it was posted, I could have had it removed a week ago. I have no idea who wrote it. But I think we can narrow the suspects to predatory publishers who are determined to prove that they are predators.  I wanted to post a version of this explanation to the comment thread on Beall's article where the fraudulent comment originally appeared. But Nature closed the thread around mid-day today, before I got a chance. I support that decision. But since I can't post my explanation there, I'm posting it here ... +Stevan Harnad, who also had an anti-Beall comment falsely attributed to him, managed to post a genuine comment before the thread closed. Let me quote and second his views: 'If the inarticulate English didn't give it away, then the incoherent content falsely attributed to me (and to Peter Suber) should be apparent to everyone with any familiarity with open access and with our views....[S]cam journals are going beyond just spamming to solicit authors, editors and referees: They are now doing fraudulent postings to counter criticism....Congratulations to Jeffrey Beall whose work becomes ever more important, as this sad development illustrates.'"