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

Abstract

This paper describes the intense software filtering that has allowed the arXiv e-print repository to sort and process large numbers of submissions with minimal human intervention, making it one of the most important and influential cases of open access repositories to date. The paper narrates arXiv's transformation, using sophisticated sorting/filtering algorithms to decrease human workload, from a small mailing list used by a few hundred researchers to a site that processes thousands of papers per month. However there are significant negative consequences for authors who have been filtered out of arXiv's main categories. There is thus a continued need to check and balance arXiv's boundaries, based in the essential tension between stability and innovation.

Demarcating Fringe Science for Policy

“…The 'hinterlands' of physics proper begin beyond the marshy ground even though they have a presence within it and within arXiv's General Physics category (Reyes-Galindo 2016, Ritson 2016. Papers accepted in General Physics will be indistinguishable from other scientific papers in terms of their appearance and style but the same will apply to nearly all of those rejected entirely by arXiv.…”

Beams of particles and papers: How digital preprint archives shape authorship and credit

“…This categorization may oversimplify the nuanced epistemic cultures that compose HEP as well as other forms of physics (Knorr Cetina, 1999; Traweek, 1988). Furthermore, it ignores the different practices of high energy physicists who publish in other, albeit less popular, threads of arXiv, such as phenomenologists or instrumentalists (Larivière et al, 2014; Reyes-Galindo, 2016). Yet, a thick analysis of the practices of HEP theorists and experimentalists shows how, within a common digital scholarly communication infrastructure, different communities use preprint archives to meet their different internal communication needs and how this is tied to evolving issues of authorship and credit attribution.…”

“…The paper is then subjected to a fast review process that may only last for few hours. This includes institutional limitations, as the paper must be sent from a recognized institutional email account and a new author must be endorsed by a recognized user; automated textual analysis screens the content for plagiarism, and that is followed by human moderation (Reyes-Galindo, 2016). Once published, articles are included in a daily digest that aggregates them in a strict chronological order.…”

“…Second, archives are the spaces where the boundaries of the HEP field are continuously created and maintained. Publication on arXiv functions as a form of certification that separates insiders from outsiders (Reyes-Galindo, 2016). In this article, I focus on individual practices in order to add yet another layer to the picture.…”

Sorting on arXiv: Introduction to an ad hoc section

“…The three articles in this section, by Luis Reyes-Galindo (2016), Sophie Ritson (2016) and Alessandro Delfanti (2016), were submitted separately to Social Studies of Science . I am assembling them here not merely because they all discuss the physics preprint server arXiv, but also because they do so in ways that show us how arXiv and some of its associated tools affect and interact with some core features of scholarly publishing.…”