[naftaliharris]

This article misses one of the biggest value-adds of arXiv, at least in my field (Statistics): since almost everyone posts to arXiv, you can almost always find a free version of a published and potentially pay-walled paper. In the past, publishing in a peer-reviewed journal would (1) improve the paper through peer review, (2) signal the quality of the paper based on the prestige of the journal, and (3) distribute the paper. With arXiv, publishing now only does (1) and (2).

[apathy]

Publishing sometimes does 1), and rarely does 2) (as a statistician you surely know that the relationship between impact factor and retraction is nonlinear and rises in strength as you get into CNS, NEJM, and the like).

I review for others because others have done 1) for me. But I'll never review for Elsevier, and lately I've had the luxury of reviewing for the most cited of open journals (by operating bioRxiv, and accepting direct submissions from it, I claim that Genome Research is "close enough").

It makes me very happy that this is possible (my CV has not suffered for only publishing as first author, and whenever possible as senior or co-senior, in fully open journals). I'm pretty sure this wasn't possible for most people a few short years ago. That engenders optimism about the future of scholarship, for me at least.

Hopefully you as well.

[slacka]

> you can almost always find a free version of a published and potentially pay-walled paper.

On personal research, I've used it for exactly this, but since what I've seen was only preprints, I've often wondered about the final version. It looks like I'm not alone.[1] Do many or any of the arXiv papers get updates with the improvements that come from peer reviews? Is there a need for arXiv for finals or do publishers demand exclusives on finals?

[1] http://mathoverflow.net/questions/41141/should-i-not-cite-an...

[beevai142]

Publishers (in this subfield at least) usually demand ownership only on the final typeset manuscript PDFs. Those cannot be uploaded, but people are usually free to update the arxiv manuscript by uploading their own "final" version files, with content equivalent to the published one. In the corner where I come from, I'd say this is done most of the time, especially if there are major changes. In practice, people often read only the arxiv versions anyway since publisher's web pages can be crappy.

Also, since you submit manuscripts to most journals in TeX, there's very little extra work involved in uploading the updated files also to arxiv. You maybe miss the copy editor's grammar corrections etc., but those are almost without exception unimportant --- also, more often than not, the copyediting by the publisher introduces errors not present in the original manuscript.

[kkylin]

Agree with everything. I also want to point out that the final published version is not always better -- it represents compromises made with reviewers / editors to get papers through. Often these are positive, but not always. Sometimes it's useful to be able to send people the preprint rather than the final version.

[hyperbovine]

The answers to your questions, unfortunately, are no and yes. Many journals, especially the higher-profile ones, make a big show of being "pre-print friendly" but then explicitly bar you from uploading revised versions to (bio)arXiv. This can be very annoying when the manuscript changes a lot between submission and publication.

[greydius]

This is an excellent point. It makes one wonder why academic journal publishers even need to exist anymore. The peer reviewers (who don't get paid anyway) could just as easily do the same job and issue a "stamp of approval".

[88e282102ae2e5b]

There is at least some value in filtering low-quality submissions, wrangling reviewers, and making editorial decisions when reviewers disagree or are just being assholes (e.g. attempting to hinder a competitor).

[jessriedel]

Yes, but this can all be done without any actual journal, i.e., no physical product, no website (other than the submission link), no typesetting, and most importantly nothing bound by a copyright. This substantially lowers costs. They are called "arXiv overlay journals".

http://quantum-journal.org/announcing-quantum/ http://www.nature.com/news/open-journals-that-piggyback-on-a... https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201602/arxiv.cfm

[baq]

Same reason CAs exist for signing certificates: trust.

[drvdevd]

If the peers were properly authenticated as such, then wouldn't that obviate the need for the journals, if trust is their only value add?

[baq]

you can be properly authenticated but not authorized, whatever it means in the context (something like not competent?) trusted journals are trusted for their competence in filtering crap out, not for being able to prove that authors are really authors.

[drvdevd]

Sure but it feels like there is some close relation there: proving an author is genuine and proving the author is producing genuinely valuable work wrt some given publication's specific audience.

If one were to build a system along that line, meant to replace prestigious academic journals of today, of course it would be gamed. But isn't the general consensus that the current system already is being gamed and usually at expense of the researchers doing valuable research and the public at large?

[simplicio]

The academic system of universities, degrees and professorships already provides a pretty elaborate system for "authenticating" academic credentials, so I don't think trust is really that big an issue. The Journals don't really add any extra layer of effort to find "trustworthy" referees, they just find academics who are already employed in a given subfield who are willing to review papers.

(and in anycase, most subfields just have a couple thousand individuals involved at the PI level, who frequently interact at conferences, went to the same schools, shared an advisor, etc. So there doesn't really need to be an elaborate scheme to verify someones credentials. Chances are two individuals are already aware of eachothers reputations, or at least know some third party who is).

[thaw13579]

Publication in trusted journals is a major component of getting hired and tenured at universities. There should be less emphasis on this, but it's an attractive option for review boards working outside the field of the person under review.