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Matteo Capucci (he/him) (Nov 21 2025 at 09:43):Apparently Springer has been counting citations wrong for at least 14 years: it misleadingly assings many more citations to the first paper in a volume, skewing the metrics:
Incorrect Citation Association for Articles in Online-Only Springer Nature Journals Tamás Kriváchy
Google Scholar and Crossref seem unaffected.
Alas, I'm finding myself forced to participate in the circus that is the academic publishing industry, specifically the Springer circus. I hope findings like this will convince more members of our community in positions of power to (a) lobby their institutions to stop paying money and attention to these companies, and (b) boycott their publications by serving as editors and/or publishing in independent, open access journals (we have a few egregious examples of these in CT, fortunately).
Chad Nester (Nov 21 2025 at 09:45):I have yet to see citation counts from different sources agree
John Baez (Nov 21 2025 at 10:13):"Egregious" means "conspicuously and outrageously bad or reprehensible", but I think Matteo meant to say that diamond open access journals like Theory and Application of Categories and Compositionality and Higher Structures and Cahiers are very good.
There are also some egregious journals like Applied Categorical Structures. I don't publish in those.
fosco (Nov 21 2025 at 10:44):John Baez said:
Applied Categorical Structures
because it's Springer? What else is outrageously bad about it?
David Michael Roberts (Nov 21 2025 at 11:10):My coauthor on this paper that I'm shepherding through the Springer publishing process (not at ACS, but a journal not unknown to people here) wrote this:
I have to agree that on the whole it has been a pretty unimpressive job by springer (or their conduits).
It’s interesting that basically every aspect of this process has been uniformly worse than any previous experience.
The academic editor who we know well has been fantastic. The referee was great. The publisher as an entity and their subcontractor? Terrible.
John Baez (Nov 21 2025 at 12:38):fosco said:
John Baez said:
Applied Categorical Structures
because it's Springer? What else is outrageously bad about it?
That's sufficient. David Roberts can give more examples of how bad Springer is in general. The contract they force you to sign now seems to forbid putting your paper on the arXiv unless you state that the copyright belongs to Springer. You have to stick lots of crud on the end of your paper saying which author did which percent of the work. Springer charges huge amounts of money for its journals and university libraries are starting to rebel. Etc.
When Theory and Applications of Categories was founded, a lot of famous category theorists quit being editors at Applied Categorical Structures and became editors at Theory and Applications of Categories. I support TAC and avoid ACS like the plague.
fosco (Nov 21 2025 at 13:19):I see; I have sent a paper to ACS a couple of years ago, and I noticed it got worse since 2015 (when my first paper ever was accepted).
Well, I have several stories of badly handed submissions, one even to TAC... But I will not disclose the details, out of politeness.
fosco (Nov 21 2025 at 13:21):[not] putting your paper on the arXiv unless you state that the copyright belongs to Springer
but is this a general rule of Springer by now? I don't imagine other communities (e.g. physicists) taking it very well...
David Michael Roberts (Nov 21 2025 at 20:26):The academic editor (and I think the EiC too) at the Springer-published journal was not aware of the publishing agreement I was being asked to sign. He was under the impression it only forbade me from uploading the Springer-branded pdf.
It goes to show people don't actually read these things too closely, and they change over time.
I filled the editor in and (slightly boldly) suggested the editorial board read and discuss whether they are happy with it. The journal is in fact not owned by Springer, just published by them.
David Michael Roberts (Nov 21 2025 at 20:30):I should ask the university legal people if they agree with my reading about how crazily strong the anti-preprint-updating clause is
Matteo Capucci (he/him) (Nov 24 2025 at 17:55):John Baez said:
"Egregious" means "conspicuously and outrageously bad or reprehensible", but I think Matteo meant to say that diamond open access journals like Theory and Application of Categories and Compositionality and Higher Structures and Cahiers are very good.
There are also some egregious journals like Applied Categorical Structures. I don't publish in those.
Whoops I'm learning this now. In italian 'egregio' has a positive connotation.
Matteo Capucci (he/him) (Nov 24 2025 at 17:57):It seems the meaning flipped in English at some point...
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John Baez (Nov 24 2025 at 18:39):Interesting! Yes, Gauss had a Theorema egregium, which was egregiously good.
Joe Moeller (Nov 24 2025 at 20:52):Etymology Online says:
1530s, "distinguished, eminent, excellent," from Latin egregius "distinguished, excellent, extraordinary," from the phrase ex grege "rising above the flock," from ex "out of" (see ex-) + grege, ablative of grex "a herd, flock" (from PIE root *ger- "to gather").
Disapproving sense, now predominant, arose late 16c., originally ironic. It is not in the Latin word, which etymologically means simply "exceptional." Related: Egregiously; egregiousness.
John Baez (Nov 24 2025 at 22:48):So 'egregious' started out as a kind of antonym of 'gregarious' - sort of like 'exgregarious'.
David Michael Roberts (Nov 24 2025 at 23:16):(I have now emailed a legal person at the university, will be interesting to hear what they say)
Matteo Capucci (he/him) (Dec 08 2025 at 14:09):John Baez said:
So 'egregious' started out as a kind of antonym of 'gregarious' - sort of like 'exgregarious'.
We now know how to call model structures on double categories which do not agree with the gregarious one :D