I am reviewing a multi-authored paper with one of the authors having been dead for 8 years. I too have authored papers with individuals who died in the process of publishing. In my experience, the death was unexpected and a footnote added in each case noting that the individual was deceased. I ask the community for their experience with this topic because I’m baffled by the authors of this current paper not acknowledging this individual’s death in any way. After a certain period of time, wouldn’t it make more sense to identify this individual in the acknowledgments rather than on the author byline? We cannot, for instance, hold them to account for the contents of this paper or ask of them for revisions to be made; we can only ask that of the living coauthors. I haven’t thought this matter through in its entirety but it seems equivalent in some way to gift/guest/honorary authorship. The ICMJE, for instance, identifies 4 criteria for authorship (substantial contribution to study conception and execution, drafting or critically revising the manuscript, final approval, and accountability for all parts). I can see the first element being satisfied, but I question the second and know that the third and fourth can’t be satisfied. The Committee on Publication Ethics advises listing deceased authors with a footnote and date of death. They also suggest considering moving the individual to the acknowledgments. There is a 2022 paper by C-H Jung et al discussing posthumous authorship. There has been a 146-fold increase in authorship by the deceased since 2000. some authors published more than 30 papers after death. 266 authors published 90% of their total number of publications after death. Some papers were published 11 years after death. I’d be interested in hearing from others on this topic to properly calibrate my thoughts. submitted by /u/WillTheyKickMeAgain [link] [comments]