[bmastenbrook]

Given the huge number of niche conferences and journals out there, is the filtering that takes place actually useful? I'm not convinced of it. I've engaged in venue shopping myself. Meanwhile useful, novel work is published in the open every day and my brain hasn't collapsed from the inrush of poorly filtered information. I run across junk, but I find published junk too. At least the former usually has the decency to not waste my time with a bunch of academic boilerplate language and a page of barely relevant citations.

[ohmygodel]

Niche venues cater to specialists in an area. Even in specialized areas there is more output than an expert can keep up with, and these smaller venues generally perform valuable filtering as well.

"my brain hasn't collapsed from the inrush of poorly filtered information" Of course not. However, you are either wasting a ton of time or you are using some other indirect method to decide what papers are useful to read. I'd love to hear if you think your personal approach to filtering non-reviewed content is superior to relying on peer review.

[bmastenbrook]

Once again, I'm not convinced the specialists are actually filtering usefully instead of juat defining the boundaries of their niche.

You've assumed that the non-reviewed content I'm reading is in the form of papers. It isn't; it's blog posts and code.