Jinhai Gao says:
February 19, 2014 at 11:23 AM
Jeff，
I thought that you should know this information. Chuan-Guo Xiao is a urologist whose controversial surgical procedure was criticized by two “science cops” in China. He hired four thugs to beat up them and was later found guilty and sentenced to 4.5 months in jail (http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/evanosnos/2010/08/science-cop-mugged.html).
This information is relevant because Xiao has a throng of fervent supporters, who have been waging a ferocious war against one of the “science cops”, Fang Shimin. The most zealous and obsessed one among them is a man named Ge Xin (aka cunfu yiming), who has written over 30 open letters to Nature complaining about the journal’s decision to give Fang an award. He also wrote letters to all MDPI editors with negative information about the publisher. I think most of the information about MDPI you posted in your article probably came from him.
Why did Xiao’s supporters pick on MDPI? What is the connection between Fang Shimin and Lin Shukun? The answer is, Lin has been a long time supporter of Fang Shimin and he recently sponsored a science award dished out by Fang’s website “New Threads”.
Bet you never thought that you could inadvertently get into this muddy water of hatred. To maintain your impartiality, I think it is prudent for you to contact the publisher to get the other side’s story.
Jeffrey Beall says:
February 19, 2014 at 12:02 PM
You have made some false assumptions. I am not at all involved in this “muddy water.” MDPI is now on my list because it meets the criteria. I’ve received many valid complaints about its practices from some very respected researchers. The mission of my list is to help researchers avoid questionable publishers, and I have added MDPI for that reason and that reason only.
Jinhai Gao says:
February 19, 2014 at 12:31 PM
I didn’t say that you were involved in the muddy water, but you could have been misled by the Fang haters. You clearly used many materials supplied by yiming. Your article has two links to his “open letter to Nature, Part XXXIII”. The two pictures both came from yiming’s open letter (the second picture was cropped by you to remove the second floor view). If you have time to click on yiming’s other open letters, you would have better idea how ridiculous a person he is. I didn’t want to see you becoming a tool of these people.
I still think that you should contact the publisher for another side of the story. This was also one of the criticisms of your method in the march 2013 Nature piece.
This was meant to reply to your post below, but there was no “Reply” button.
Jeffrey Beall says:
February 19, 2014 at 12:42 PM
I realize that the ‘Fang haters’ are just looking for ‘dirt’ on MDPI, but a lot of the dirt they found is real dirt! Criminals can testify against other criminals (metaphorically speaking).
I think that if evidence is credible, the source isn’t that important. Thank you for your comments.
Jinhai Gao says:
February 19, 2014 at 1:24 PM
Both at the beginning and at the end of your article, you cited the publisher being a controversial figure in China as a main reason for your recommendation of avoiding MDPI. I think it is fair to say that you had been clearly misled by Fang haters. The only reason that Lin Shukun became a controversial figure in China is because yiming and Co. made it look like so, due to his association with Dr. Fang.
Jeffrey Beall says:
February 19, 2014 at 1:30 PM
Under what circumstances did he leave the University of Louisville? Not the Louisville in China, but the one in the U.S.
Jinhai Gao says:
February 19, 2014 at 1:43 PM
Your question perfectly illustrated my point. He left Louisville 25 years ago. The incident remained undisclosed until a couple of months ago, after his public donation to Fang’s website, thanks to the diligence of guys like yiming, who searched the internet deep and wide for dirt. By the way, there is no Louisville in China.
Jeffrey Beall says:
February 19, 2014 at 1:46 PM
What incident? Can you describe it fully?
If he left 25 years ago, how can there be a record on the internet?
Thanks.
Jinhai Gao says:
February 19, 2014 at 2:12 PM
First of all, I don’t believe that the incident itself has any bearing on whether MDPI is a legitimate publisher.
The University never made it public. However, in 2002 an anonymous person posted a message (ironically) on a forum in Fang’s website. Yiming was able to dig out this message last month and went after it. You can see a screen shot of that message in yiming’s “33rd open letter to Nature”.
My understanding is that the accusation was from his former advisor from China who claimed that Lin stole his idea in a paper published in the Journal of Organic Chemistry while at the U of L. This accusation was neither proven nor disproved. Partly because of the fallout from this accusation, Lin left Louisville and finished his degree in Switzerland.