April 29, 2026
Cite Club just got busted
Third Editor Fired in Elsevier's Citation Cartel Crackdown
Another journal boss is out, and commenters say the whole publishing game smells rotten
TLDR: A third editor is reportedly out in Elsevier’s growing crackdown over papers allegedly used to inflate careers and citation counts. Commenters are treating it as proof that the wider academic publishing system is broken, greedy, and overdue for a reckoning.
The latest academic scandal has the comment section in full burn-it-all-down mode. Elsevier, the giant company that publishes research journals, is looking for a new boss at one finance journal after editor John Goodell reportedly exited early — and readers think they know exactly why. The article ties his departure to a bigger crackdown on an alleged citation cartel, where editors and authors helped each other rack up papers and references like they were trading baseball cards. Community reaction? Less shock, more "finally".
The strongest takes were absolutely savage. One commenter dragged the entire academic system with the old line that politics are so vicious because the stakes are so small, then added that editors abusing their power deserve a "special place in hell." Another skipped subtlety entirely and said they hope Elsevier, Springer, and the rest go out of business. And the mood only got darker from there: commenters argued this isn’t just one bad apple, but a business model that rewards vanity numbers like publication counts and citation scores instead of real work.
There was also plenty of grim comedy. One person joked the real mistake wasn’t the scheme — it was getting too greedy and making the numbers so absurd that everyone noticed. Another line read like a protest chant: "3 down, thousands to go." The vibe across the thread is clear: readers aren’t just side-eyeing one fired editor, they’re questioning the whole paywalled empire and cheering every crack in the façade.
Key Points
- •Elsevier posted a call for a new editor-in-chief at *Research in International Business and Finance* even though John Goodell’s term was reportedly not due to end until 2027.
- •The article says, based on the author’s sources, that Goodell’s departure is tied to an alleged citation-cartel crackdown previously reported by the author.
- •The article states that Brian Lucey and Samuel Vigne were previously removed from multiple editorial roles and were co-authors of Goodell.
- •The article reports that Goodell’s annual publication output rose sharply from 2021 to 2025 after a much lower and steadier output in earlier years.
- •The article says Goodell published 125 papers across three journals and that his citation count reached 15,663, with 4,203 citations in 2025 alone.