We’ve discussed issues with Academia.edu here before. Now there’s a new development. A number of academics have been receiving messages like the following:

Hi Dr. ________,

My name is Adnan, I’m the Product Director here at Academia. I noticed you had received a few recommendations on your papers. Would you be open to paying a small fee to submit any upcoming papers to our board of editors to be considered for recommendation? You’d only be charged if your paper was recommended. If it does get recommended then you’ll see the natural boost in viewership and downloads that recommended papers get. Would love to hear your thoughts

Best,

Adnan

As one correspondent on this matter, James Wilberding, said: “Needless to say, this sounds very dodgy and throws a questionable light on all of the statistics on academia.edu.”

I poked around the academia.edu website and did not see any notice of this new initiative, not even on its “ recommended papers ” question page. Do any readers know more? Should we start taking “recommended” to mean “written by someone willing and able to pay academia.edu to say ‘recommended'”?