[dguest]

Anyone can put a paper on arXiv. The bigger problem is that most journal editors will be skeptical of citing arXiv. If you're collaborating with more traditional academics it can be a challenge to even submit a paper with such citations.

I've had to push my colleagues to cite a number of non-traditional sources: arXiv, github, and zenodo for example. Fortunately most of them agree that citations are cheap and that giving more people credit is generally a good thing.

One thing that helps is publicly stating how you want your research cited. If you don't have a peer reviewed publication in the pipeline, tell people how to cite your work on a blog or your github page or somewhere. Most people default to peer-reviewed journals for citations and get confused when one doesn't exist, so an explicit statement really helps.

[mattkrause]

I think that's less true than it used to be: a lot of papers now cite bioarxiv or arxiv preprints. I've never gotten any pushback and most journals explicitly allow it.

Science: "We do allow citations to papers posted at arXiv or bioRxiv." https://www.sciencemag.org/authors/instructions-preparing-in...

Nature (and other NPG journals): "Preprints may be cited in the reference list of articles under consideration at Nature Research journals...." https://www.nature.com/nature-research/editorial-policies/pr...

Cell (and other Cell Press journals, including Neuron and Current Biology): "Posted preprints may also be included in the References list with appropriate identification information...." https://www.cell.com/cell/authors

PNAS: "Preprints are cited as follows with a DOI or preprint ID number, and the date of posting...."https://www.cell.com/cell/authors

[avian]

> Anyone can put a paper on arXiv.

Unfortunately as an academic it's really hard to justify spending time on writing up a paper that's only going to be published on arXiv. Regardless of citations, it doesn't count towards your publication quotas or PhD requirements.