From: Rick Anderson <[log in to unmask]> Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2016 01:55:35 +0000 >I thought it was worth making my comments since all three of these >cases -- and if you want to call them "anecdotal," it's worth keeping >in mind that anecdotes can be just as empirically valid as anything >else Not if you’re using three of them as a basis on which to draw broad conclusions about a very large data set. PLOS One publishes tens of thousands of articles every year. Three anecdotes about poor editorial oversight, in this context, do not constitute a valid sample. >So if you want to defend PLOS, the only recourse you can have is to >some version of "not every single article it publishes is quite that >awful" or, to quote the Osmund Brothers: "one bad apple don't spoil >the whole bunch, girl. I can’t speak for everyone else who has responded to you, Michael, but I have no interest in either defending or attacking PLOS. I do think it’s important to base criticisms on valid and rigorous data, though. --- Rick Anderson Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication Marriott Library, University of Utah [log in to unmask]