Stunning misinterpretation by @Clarivate/ @WebOfScience in their decision to suppress citation counts for all papers in @Zootaxa. This damages the entire field of zoological taxonomy, and in particular researchers from developing countries.

Taxonomy is foundational to biology, but *by convention* those using its results do not cite its papers — ± only other taxonomists do. Taxonomists have flocked to @Zootaxa, which therefore gets blacklisted by @Clarivate for self-citations.

Why was @Zootaxa successful? Taxonomists are poorly funded — their papers are cited rarely but over centuries, and they often work in developing nations where the biodiversity is, with few funds. Zootaxa found a cheap, fast e-centric model.

@Zootaxa publishes good papers. Taxonomists at many institutions, including in developing countries, require international impact factor for career progress. Unable to afford page charges at other journals, where do they go?

Few journals publish taxonomy, yet @Clarivate's action pushes taxonomists to avoid them in order to dilute their citation concentration. Because others don't cite taxonomists, @Clarivate has decided to kick them while they're down?

@Clarivate can suppress impact factors, but if they are to represent science, perhaps they could act as scientists, and use a bit of wisdom in analyzing the data?

(What is this peculiar *convention* of not citing taxonomic papers? Even when biologists cite the discoverer of a species, they do not include the paper in Literature Cited, unless discussing details of the discovery.)

What hashtag for this @Clarivate scandal? #Clarigate?

@vespinhazinhas aptly points out @Clarivate's illogic with their own data: https://twitter.com/vespinhazinhas/status/1278529721576415232

From the International Society of Arachnology: https://twitter.com/ISArachnology/status/1279099807068352512

Clarification of first tweet in thread: suppressed by @Clarivate is the collective count of citations, as Zootaxa's Impact Factor, not counts for individual papers. I.F. is used by many institutions to judge those who publish there.