Cite only "good papers" or "all expected papers"?

Question

I work in a small interdisciplinary field in which one group writes a lot of papers that aren't good but are often read. When I publish on a topic that they have published on before, should I cite them even if their work is irrelevant to mine?

More context:

The prolific group publishes a lot of mathematical modeling papers in which the model is hidden behind a cascade of self-citation, is written in somewhat non-standard terminology, and no code or calibration data is published. My field is dominated by non-modelers who are often not equipped to judge the modeling, but who read the papers for the figures and discussion (and open peer review has shown that they often review the papers without reviewing the model).

The ethics of citation as I understand them agree with this answer in that we must cite (1) intellectual precedents of our work, (2) supporting evidence, and (3) papers that provide appropriate context. Because their methods are opaque to other modelers like myself, (1) and (2) aren't possible. The papers are also not (3) appropriate context because the science between the intro and discussion isn't done well and I view these papers as opinion pieces.

But, I can expect my non-modeler readers to look askance at my minimal citations of the group's work. As a less-established member of the community, it can look like I'm playing games with priority when I'm actually concerned about advancing the poor state of modeling in my field. I'm debating whether to stick to my principles or give in to what I perceive are poor citation practices to lower friction and look more collegial.

Answer 1

In my discipline the typical structure of an article is introduction, theory, previous research, data/methods, results, conclusion. In the section "previous research" you describe the state of the art in your field regarding the research question from your article. As I understand the OP's question, there is a group the OP disagrees with, but who are considered in your field to be important. In that case you need to refer to them (not every single publication, but one or two main publications), even if you think their way of doing things is substandard. That does not mean you have to agree with them; you can tell your audience how your approach differs form theirs and how your approach is (in your opinion) better. But ignoring an important part of your field is bad. Addressing substandard practices is how your field can move forward.

Pragmatically, not citing them in the previous results section signals to the readers, editors, and reviewers that you are not aware of important parts of your discipline or that you don't want to take part in a particular debate. Both can easily lead to your article being considered less relevant, which could get your article rejected or ignored.

Answer 2

If they are always citing all of their own papers, a good solution might be to just cite the last one, "and references cited therein". If you cite a review, you're also not citing every publication that's mentioned in it, and you don't have to do that here. This saves you from clogging up your paper with crappy citations, and doesn't give them too many undeserved citations.

You also write that you don't want to make any big statements, but you can just write some facts if you want to make a point in a more subtle way. For example: "some models that were thoroughly calibrated validated are described in [good publications]. Models published by [weak group] show that ...(something else that's also relevant)". You could definitely write somewhere "models in [xxx] not used because code was not provided".