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0 pointslight_hue_14y ago0 comments

This is completely false! Please stop telling people that arXiv moderators judge the technical content of papers. That's not their role and it leads to people trusting arXiv when they should not.

It's a complete-free-for-all.

arXiv moderators do not judge the technical content. They don't filter misleading submissions. They don't filter work in need of revision. This is literally described on the arXiv website: https://arxiv.org/help/moderation "What policies guide moderation before public announcement? "

They filter spammers, check for total obvious nutjobs ("My grilled cheese said P=NP"), for crazy formatting, for blatant copyright violations.

Publishing junk on arXiv is trivial if you're not too crazy and know a little bit how to use the right words. You can publish anything.

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treesprite824y ago

> They don't filter work in need of revision. This is literally described on the arXiv website: https://arxiv.org/help/moderation "What policies guide moderation before public announcement? "

The page you're linking backs up what I've listed. The third subheader in that section for example:

> A submission may be declined if the moderators determine it lacks originality, novelty, or significance.

> Submissions that do not contain original or substantive research, including undergraduate research, course projects, and research proposals, news, or information about political causes (even those with potential special interest to the academic community) may be declined.

> Papers that contain inflammatory or fictitious content, papers that use highly dramatic and misrepresentative titles/abstracts/introductions, or papers in need of significant review and revision may be declined.

---

> it leads to people trusting arXiv when they should not

I'm only claiming that their moderation is a quick once-over to filter out papers blatantly in violation of those policies (like the "total obvious nutjobs" you describe), while being clear that it's not a peer review.

robwwilliams4y ago

“May” is the key word in that long sentence. bioRxiv certainly does not review content of submissions using the standard definition of the word “review”. They may scan for style and general content type—for example rejecting reviews.

But I agree with the parent comment that these archives are extremely valuable.

I disagree that informal community comments are of much critical value. In most cases twitter comments and micro-reviews are relatively trivial and are usually based on quick reads rather than deep perusals.

sombremesa4y ago

If you happen to be interested in the "my grilled cheese said P=NP" type papers [0] for entertainment value, check out Vixra [1].

Though calling them papers can be a stretch.

Here's one that "proves" P=NP [2].

[0] https://vixra.org/pdf/1903.0040v1.pdf

[1] https://vixra.org

[2] https://vixra.org/pdf/1502.0047v1.pdf

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