Towards the end of 2024, I was still receiving offers for publication. I could not believe that journals wanted to collaborate with me without checking first my Google Scholar or LinkedIn profile. In one of those cases I saw that my personal EMail was in some proceedings – maybe by Typo, but I had to take full responsibility. Nonetheless, I could still refer to my official statement and say that I did not want to publish any more. I laughed at those cases that referred to “my research group” thinking about what happened in 2024.
One of those offers came from the journal that did not answer since 26.09.2024. Nonetheless, they replied towards the end of December with an apology that I truly appreciate, but at the time I was not so patient to handle gracefully. I’ve unsubscribed from wherever I could. I had to come to terms with the fact that not every journal knows what I went through, that I was getting messages at inappropriate times, that my private phone number was illegally shared, that I was registered without my consent and I had to deal with so many unprofessional behaviors like professional ghosting. That’s when I started to think about publishing all this anonymously; for many people, all those experiences were clearly unimaginable.
