A few weeks ago, while speaking at UIN Surakarta, a student asked me a troubling question:
“Sir, my article was accepted by a journal, but the editor said it could only be published if I added a foreign author.”

This wasn’t an isolated case. A month earlier, a friend told me that a Malaysian writer—someone he didn’t even know—contacted him out of the blue, asking to list him as a co-author. Why? Because the editor demanded a foreign name on the author list.

And just today, another colleague shared a similar experience. Their manuscript had passed peer review, but the editor insisted on adding a non-Indonesian co-author.

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To my fellow journal editors:

I understand your struggles. I’ve been there. I’ve edited established journals like al-Jami’ah, and I’ve also helped build journals from the ground up—from unindexed and unknown, to eventually reaching Sinta 2.

Yes, we’ve all made administrative compromises. I admit we once used the “login as” feature in OJS to make it look like our journal was fully system-managed, even though much of the actual work happened by email. That may have been a technical shortcut, a forgivable offense—because it didn’t distort the academic substance.

But let’s be clear: listing someone as an author who made no contribution at all is academic fraud.
It’s not a gray area. It’s not a policy workaround. It’s a violation of scholarly ethics.

If you’re an editor demanding that authors add a foreign name simply to boost your journal’s international look, ask yourself:
What exactly are you doing this for?
What’s the point of having a Scopus-indexed journal if it’s built on dishonest practices?

Do you think there won’t be accountability—in this world or the next?

And let’s be real: editorial work doesn’t even count toward academic promotion. There’s no credit score for it. You’re better off writing and researching on your own. All that effort—only to impress others or protect your journal’s rank? Especially when one leadership change could remove you from the editorial board overnight. 🤷‍♂️

If it’s just about prestige, remember what people really say behind your back:
“It’s the journal that’s indexed, not the editor.”
Your name is not your journal. In the end, what matters is your integrity—not your editorial title.

And now that I think about it… years ago, a lecturer from UIN Nganu asked to include me as a co-author because I was in Jerusalem at the time. I used to assume he just wanted to cheat. But maybe, just maybe, he was under pressure from an editor too.
If so, I owe him an apology.

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