From "Arbitrary Timberland" To "Skyline Charts": Is Visualization At Risk From The Pollution of Scientific Literature?

In this essay, I argue that, while visualization research does not seem to be directly at risk of being corrupted by the current massive wave of polluted research, certain visualization concepts are being used in fraudulent fashions and fields close to ours are being targeted. Worse, the society publishing our work is overwhelmed by thousands of questionable papers that are being, unfortunately, published. As a community, and if we want our research to remain as good as it currently is, I argue that we should all get involved with our variety of skills to help identify and correct the current scientific record. I thus aim to present a few questionable practices that are worth knowing about when reviewing for fields using visualization research, and hopefully will never be useful when reviewing for our main venues. I also argue that our skill set could become particularly relevant in the future and invite scholars of the fields to try to get involved.