2023 was the year when academic publishers started to take seriously the threat that paper mills posed to their business. Their research integrity experts have penned various articles about the scale of the problem and the need to come up with solutions (e.g., here and here). Interested parties have joined forces in an initiative called United2Act. And yet, to outsiders, it looks as though some effective actions are being overlooked. It's hard to tell whether this is the result of timi...
