A note concerning primary source knowledge

Abstract

We present the results of running 4 different papers through the automated filtering system used by the open access preprint server “arXiv” to classify papers and implement quality control barriers. The exercise was carried out in order to assess whether these highly sophisticated, state‐of‐the‐art filters can distinguish between papers that are controversial or have gone past their “sell‐by date,” and otherwise normal papers. We conclude that not even the arXiv filters, which are otherwise successful in filtering fringe‐topic papers, can fully acquire “Domain‐Specific Discrimination” and thus distinguish technical papers that are taken seriously by an expert community from those that are not. Finally, we discuss the implications this has for citizen and policy‐maker engagement with the Primary Source Knowledge of a technical domain.

Automating the Horae: Boundary-work in the age of computers

“… 9. This is consistent with an exhaustive analysis of arXiv moderation decisions on the entirety of physics submissions from July 2014 to June 2015, according to which just slightly less than one percent of papers are outright rejected (Collins, Ginsparg and Reyes-Galindo, unpublished manuscript.). The figure may be significantly higher for some of the more publicly visible categories, such as hep-th . …”

“…Gunnarsdóttir (2005) has carried out an ethnomethodology of arXiv administrator’s daily practice. Collins (2014) and Collins Ginsparg and Reyes-Galindo (unpublished manuscript) outline the role of arXiv within the wider ecology of physics in and far outside mainstream science.…”

Preprint Déjà Vu

“…The size of the database is a benefit: machine learning tools work much better when trained on millions of articles than thousands, and are still computationally efficient for a linear pass. We also perform a variety of other checks for missing text, missing references, mismatched author names, and of course detecting non-scientific content and other outliers [3]. For many fields of physics, mathematics, and computer science, it is the primary mode of research communication, used for early dissemination, improvement of articles, medium-term visibility, and archival findability.…”