Tuller: Trial By Error: Our Exchange of Views with BMJ Open

http://www.virology.ws/2018/02/26/trial-by-error-our-exchange-of-views-with-bmj-open/

 

Fantastic - thank you

 

What a weird reply from Groves. And a good one from Racaniello & co. Thanks so much to all the signatories.

What is going on here? It's so odd that this is a pretty simple, matter of fact issue, but BMJ Open want to try to ignore that. Are they just confident that they can go on bluffing it out?

 

I think journals just seem to make up rules but never expect to take the difficult decisions to enforce them. They saw a get out with the response from Bristol so went with it.

 

From the COPE forum:

Racaniello et al respond:

I love this sentence:

''As our letter noted, obtaining such clarification would only require that you and other BMJ Open editors read the actual paper.''

So it seems the BMJ Open editor is prepared to defend a paper she herself published but which she hasn't actually bothered to read. Pretty damning.

 

Kudos to the researcher too

 

But, in addition to my last post, I really must make this point -

This letter by Racaniello et al is spot on. We couldn’t ask for better advocacy than this, exposing the corrupt nature of the medical journals that so many bow down to. I just hope that Tuller is going to stay on board and ask for crowdfunding for another year. Without him we would be back to floundering around, not getting anywhere fast. Does anybody know what he’s intending to do?

If you’re reading this David, PLEASE stay on board, we all need you.

 

@dave30th

 

David is on the forum as @dave30th.

 

Dr Trish Groves in picture form:

 

I did know that

 

I suspect it may be inertia. Journals have probably been pulling these sort of tricks for many many years, and up until now have been able to conceal and obfuscate with ease, and faced no opposition they could not deal with. Social media has changed all that, and I don't think they have really caught on. I suspect they still have a dinosaur culture that blindly tries to blunder on in the same old bull-and-bluster way that always used to work for them, not realising how it actually digs their own very deep hole for them in the modern age. I think they simply know no better.

 

Quite so and I think they still think they are invincible and above scrutiny.

 

Which will hopefully be their downfall.

 

I can't get this to open - I just get a message saying "Internal Server Error".

Is it just me?! Has the article been posted anywhere else?

Thank-you.

 

No. Ive just tried and it's not loading for me at the moment either. Could just be server maintenance or something has taken it offline. Try again in a bit?

 

Virology Blog was down briefly a few weeks ago. Do we suspect Trump, Putin or the BPS Brigade?

 

No the whole site seems to be down at the moment, even if you try to access just http://www.virology.ws

 

Do seem to be a bit troubled just recently. Hopefully got good security in place, because I'm sure there must be no shortage of folks who would happily cause Virology Blog major aggro if they could.

 

Many thanks for the replies. I hope they will be able to get the site up and running again.