The review mills, not just (self-)plagiarism in review reports, but a step further

Review mills sum up a new category of reviewer misconduct that flies in the face of reviewer ethics and integrity. A pattern of generic, vague, and repeated affirmations (identical or very similar boilerplate phrasing) is noted in the analysis of 263 review reports, regardless of the scientific content of the papers under review, coupled with coercive citation (perhaps among the main reasons for such behavior), which when combined produce fake reviews. The misconduct associated with review mills is unlike mere plagiarism (self-plagiarism) of reviewer comments. It is important to quantify the problem and to take urgent measures: (a) to identify the review millers; (b) to rectify the published literature; and (c) to determine procedures for journals and publishers on procedures to counter this new type of misconduct.