tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (Downsides of the arXiv?)

Ryan Budney comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14569)

Ryan Budney — Thu, 19 May 2011 17:15:23 -0700

It seems like this thread has run its course -- the blog Webster links to has a good discussion going now.

Noah Snyder comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14568)

Noah Snyder — Thu, 19 May 2011 13:51:42 -0700

Note that the number of votes and favorites may look high, but they're not high *relative to the number of people who have looked at the question*. Compare the upvotes for the question to the upvotes for the highest voted comment.

Shevek comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14567)

Shevek — Thu, 19 May 2011 13:42:20 -0700

I am sympathetic to Igor Pak's question. It concerns a topic of interest to mathematicians, was asked in good faith, and its existence causes no harm to those who do not like this kind of question. Also note that it has +12 votes and 5 people have added it to their favorites.

The fact that discussion and argumentation could be had on the topic of the ArXiv doesn't mean that discussion and argumentation is necessarily needed (or inevitable) in order to answer Igor's question.
[Put differently: A question of a subjective nature on MathOverflow doesn't necessarily need to descend into an epic "battle of opinions" whose outcome will be of great importance and decide the future of civilization (or the ArXiv).] The answers could simply have collected anecdotes about situations where the use of the ArXiv caused some regret or trouble. These answers could have serviced the community by pointing out some potentially negative effects of using the ArXiv that may have never crossed peoples' minds. At the very least it could have given people some food for thought. For example, to me the ArXiv seems like the greatest thing since sliced bread and it seems bizarre to me that some people do not post all their papers on the ArXiv. (For example, Rosenberg posts his work on some random preprint server at the University of Munich.) The idea that there would be downsides to doing this never crossed my mind and I would have been very interested to hear examples where doing this caused someone some problems.

Ryan Budney comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14566)

Ryan Budney — Thu, 19 May 2011 13:23:43 -0700

@Will: regarding medicine, I suspect this is largely because much of medicine is a practice rather than hard science. Very few medical procedures are vetted in a scientific manner -- if a new surgical procedure comes-about, it's rare for there to be trials to see how the new method compares against old methods (or a placebo) since if a surgeon has a clear opinion on what produces the best outcome, the patient is always going to choose the apparently-best outcome. And if you're a surgeon you're going to have pretty strong opinions since you have to make "real time decisions" where if you fuss about too much your patient may suffer or die. Moreover, two surgeons perform the "same" procedure quite differently since there are many small methods and techniques that are not standardized across the profession, so it makes trials that involve more than one doctor almost impossible. I think I heard a BBC special on this topic once and I'm chanelling it.

Ben Webster comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14565)

Ben Webster — Thu, 19 May 2011 13:14:41 -0700

I've made up a blog post on this question, mostly as an open thread.

Ben Webster comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14564)

Ben Webster — Thu, 19 May 2011 11:47:55 -0700

Indeed, there's almost no imaginable behavior that could create significant disruption if it cost 4K in reputation. Admittedly, whatever it were, JDH could do it 10 times, but even that wouldn't really make much trouble.

Noah Snyder comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14561)

Noah Snyder — Thu, 19 May 2011 10:57:07 -0700

@AndrewStacey: Well obviously I didn't expect you to agree with me on this point. But the point is that these sort of vague discussion-y questions don't actually cause a problem as long as they're *rare*. Making them cost 4K rep would guarantee that they were rare while cutting down on the bad feelings caused by closing questions of people who answer a lot of questions.

Harald Hanche-Olsen comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14555)

Harald Hanche-Olsen — Thu, 19 May 2011 08:48:36 -0700

This is getting monumentally off topic, but I can't let this statement stand unchallenged:

There is no need to collect accident statistics to name the two leading causes of all accidents from car crashes to nuclear plant meltdowns: number one is human error when operating the gadget, number two is human negligence when doing maintenance. We do not need to improve our gadgets drastically; most of them are damn good.

The design of gadgets plays a huge role in how imperfect and fallible human beings cope with their operation. Well designed gadgets make correct use natural, and wrong use unnatural or difficult. I think I read somewhere that during the three mile island accident, more than 100 alarms were going off simultaneously in the control room. How do you figure out which of them to pay attention to first? These are nontrivial questions. The solution is not to build smarter humans (though that would help too), but to make smarter gadgets that help, rather than hinder, decision making.

'nuff said, I think.

Andrew Stacey comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14553)

Andrew Stacey — Thu, 19 May 2011 04:10:35 -0700

I certainly don't support the idea of "getting something back from the community" meaning "allowed to post dubious questions".

I would have voted to close this question. Apart from being "off topic", I would want to know what was intended to be done with the answers to this question. Is it just intended to be a place to record anecdotes about the evil arXiv? Was it a call to arms for viXra? What action was to be taken? Just having a list of complaints here would be very unlikely to sway the arXiv administrators. Perhaps if you had said something along the lines of

"I'm preparing a document about the arXiv that I wish to distribute to graduate students and recent PhDs. I wish to make it balanced and consider the bad side of the existence of the arXiv as well as the good. As it is easier to find information about the good side than the bad, I would like to know of examples where posting something to the arXiv has turned out to have negative consequences. Ideally, the examples should be independently verifiable and the consequence directly linked to the arXiv.".

This is more focussed, the parameters for answers are more clearly laid out, and the purpose of the question is both clear and reasonable.

But I would still have voted to close as "off topic". Such things are important, but "important" is not the same as "belongs on MO".

José Figueroa comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14552)

José Figueroa — Thu, 19 May 2011 03:40:15 -0700

Not that it matters, but I went to same school as Alaska :) (Of course, unless you're Spanish and of the right age this will not mean much, but she was the muse of La Movida.)

Gerry Myerson comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14551)

Gerry Myerson — Wed, 18 May 2011 23:10:31 -0700

@Noah, I have answered way more MO questions than I have asked, but I do not feel that I "deserve to get something back from the site;" quite the contrary, I feel bad that I have not contributed my fair share by asking more questions. Also, affect \ne effect.

Will Jagy comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14550)

Will Jagy — Wed, 18 May 2011 21:12:29 -0700

Yep. She's slightly younger. I see, I thought she might have been born before I finished high school, but no. I was class of 1974: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syosset_High_School

This should work: http://zakuski.utsa.edu/~jagy/diploma_high_school.pdf

Mariano comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14549)

Mariano — Wed, 18 May 2011 21:07:17 -0700

You went to the same high school as Natalie Portman?

Will Jagy comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14548)

Will Jagy — Wed, 18 May 2011 18:26:45 -0700

Part of it is just that the arXiv was fit to patterns in physics publishing, which had already a greater number of rapid-publishing venues,
http://prl.aps.org/ and probably different standards about refereeing. I once sat in on a legal deposition with my high-school friend, a medical doctor. I asked him about how nobody was bringing up references for their medical viewpoints. He said references were of no importance, medicine operates under what he called "community standards." Fascinating idea. He said that from time to time an article appears that changes community standards in medicine, but that is rare. Also, Paul Ginsparg and I went to the same high school, he was one year ahead. Worth repeating. And Natalie Portman. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalie_Portman

fedja comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14547)

fedja — Wed, 18 May 2011 16:26:57 -0700

"this is like refusing to collect the accident statistics - we would never know how to potentially improve the arXiv, which really hasn't changed/evolved much since its birth some 15 years ago or whatever."

There is no need to collect accident statistics to name the two leading causes of all accidents from car crashes to nuclear plant meltdowns: number one is human error when operating the gadget, number two is human negligence when doing maintenance. We do not need to improve our gadgets drastically; most of them are damn good. Yes, they have limitations and operating costs but that's not the part you seem to be concerned about (unless I misunderstand your comments completely). There is no more need to improve ArXiV in terms of "safety" than there is to improve the axe, but there is an urgent need to improve the human race.

The problem with posting a wrong paper and, as a result, ruining your career that was brought up has to be resolved not by modifications in the ArXiV software but by the modifications in the attitudes of both the poster and the readers. When I discuss math. with my friends and tell them that we should try this or that approach, I'm wrong in 70% of cases. When I tell them that something should be true, I'm wrong in 30% of cases. When I claim to them that I have a proof and ask them to verify it, I'm wrong 10% of the time. Somehow it didn't ruin my professional reputation despite I have no way to retract my claims after they have been made. What saves me is my own critical attitude towards my math. claims and the patience and good will of my colleagues. What I've seen many times when a false high stake claim is made to the general public on ArXiV or somewhere else is a) total rejection of criticism and inability to plainly say "Yes, I'm wrong" on the part of the person who makes the claim and b) something more or less equivalent to shouting "Ha-ha, you are caught wrong!" on the part of the general math. community. A few experts who make an honest attempt to extract the salvageable ideas and to see what can be done with them are hardly heard by either side. Now, do you really believe that some fiddling with software will do any good here?

And aren't we pretty close to the question of the meaning of life/math. research now? I mean, it is the general attitude of the math community that made the claimant hide his progress, abstain from discussing his work with others, and bet his career on a sudden claim to fame and stardom. It is the general "winner takes all" principle that is flawed, not some lack of "safety belts" in the system. We always tell that we are looking for the "best of the best" while the only meaningful division is between "good enough" and "not good enough" or, maybe, even between "good enough already" and "not good enough yet".

I'm far from calling for total harmony and cooperation. There are both pleasure and value in open rivalry. But the ultimate goal of this fight is certainly not to outsmart the fellow human(s). What is it then? Now we've come to the "meaning of life" issue and I'd better stop. I guess I've ranted more than is acceptable even for meta...

igorpak@gmail.com comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14544)

igorpak@gmail.com — Wed, 18 May 2011 11:30:34 -0700

@fedja - "a tool .. like a car" is precisely a correct analogy, but "We may just as well discuss the meaning of life [..] without producing any valuable result" is a non-sequitur, I think. Cars can be terrific and also very much unsafe depending on the speed, safety features, etc. Even though the accidents are rare, their outcomes are occasionally so bad we learned to use and even mandate various safety features added to cars. It's up to us to figure out what if anything can be done, but if we don't know the "downsides"(to repeat myself), this is like refusing to collect the accident statistics - we would never know how to potentially improve the arXiv, which really hasn't changed/evolved much since its birth some 15 years ago or whatever.

As an improvement, to avoid "false paper problem", some people would like to open a discussion board (see http://mathoverflow.net/questions/46237/opening-the-peer-reviewing-process/46276#46276 ) - I personally am against that. As a modest proposal, I would add "release on ... date" feature which would allow people to post on the arXiv to get a time stamp, but make the paper public only when they want to. This would be very easy to implement and remove some of the issues people have.

@Noah - I have no idea how to improve MO. Now that I encountered this closing question problem, I am not even sure I know what MO is, as my own experience (despite my 5K+ rep) was fairly limited - I would simply answer other people's questions which I thought were reasonable and deserved an answer.

fedja comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14543)

fedja — Wed, 18 May 2011 10:28:23 -0700

@Igor "I also have a personal view that arXiv makes a quantitative rather than qualitative difference - it makes good aspects of our work better (beautiful and important results are widely and rapidly available), and bad aspects of our work much worse (competition, career issues, plagiarism, unpolished papers coupled with impossibility to withdraw them, etc.)".

Of course. It is just a tool, isn't it? I mean like an axe, a match, a car, a nuclear reactor, and everything else. What you said applies equally well to any of those. By the way, I remember the world without ArXiV and TeX or even computers (typewriters, carbons, colored pencils for circling math. symbols, regular post instead of e-mail, etc.). The information channels were much slower, but that's all the real difference. The humans were the same and the problems were the same.

I have no keen sense of "what is inappropriate for MO" and more often than not advocate for its being open for all kinds of math. related questions. I just cannot make much sense of this particular one. Sure, ArXiV is not for everybody but what (besides bread and water) is? In short, I agree with most of what you say; I just do not see a topic for a meaningful specialized discussion here. We may just as well discuss the meaning of life and that has been tried many times without producing any valuable result :).

Noah Snyder comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14542)

Noah Snyder — Wed, 18 May 2011 10:23:39 -0700

More specifically MO has the following problem:

It seems to be the case that more experienced mathematicians do way more question answering than question asking, and when they do have questions to ask they're often not "classical" MO "just the math" questions. On the other hand, in some sense people who have answered way more questions than they have asked deserve to get something back from the site, and when their question gets closed it leaves a bad taste.

Perhaps we need some mechanism where you can spend a few thousand reputation to ask an "unclosable" question :-)

Noah Snyder comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14541)

Noah Snyder — Wed, 18 May 2011 10:14:28 -0700

One point I just wanted to bring out from Igor's most recent post. It's very hard to separate the affect of the arXiv from the affect of the internet itself, or more generally just the way the profession has changed over the past 15 years. The nature of what's *caused* by the rise of the arXiv versus what's just correlated with it is, well, a subjective and argumentative issue...

It's certainly a known problem with MO that it happens somewhat frequently that question closing of leaves a bad taste in people's mouths. Certainly everyone would like to fix that problem, but it's not really clear what to do. After all "What kind of questions can I ask here?" is the very first item in the FAQ and the second one is "What kind of questions should I not ask here?" and I think both of the answers pretty clearly explain that your question is outside the scope of the site.

Looking back over the question, I think people were trying to be nice and welcoming (e.g. Theo's original comment is phrased quite positively). We'd all definitely be interested to hear from you what we could do to make it a less unpleasant experience for people in your situation. The problem is that it's not obvious to me what people should have done to be more helpful. I don't think there's an easy modification of this question which would not be closed (and also people are often offended by large rewrites of their questions), and the fact of the matter is that there's not really a good forum for reposting this question (just an opinion that MO is not the place because it has the wrong software).

igorpak@gmail.com comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14540)

igorpak@gmail.com — Wed, 18 May 2011 09:56:41 -0700

Thank you, everyone. You guys have a keen sense of "what goes" into MO and for a variety of perfectly good reasons feel this simply does not. I am not sure I am convinced, but I understand. The thing is, I know there are "arXiv refuseniks" (not me, but I got a couple of "supporting" emails yesterday to prove it) or at least people like me who *never* scan arXiv (I feel it's a waste of time). I also have a personal view that arXiv makes a quantitative rather than qualitative difference - it makes good aspects of our work better (beautiful and important results are widely and rapidly available), and bad aspects of our work much worse (competition, career issues, plagiarism, unpolished papers coupled with impossibility to withdraw them, etc.) Where you stand on this tradeoff is extremely personal, as individual situations can wary. When people say it's the all the same, they don't remember the world without the arXiv (or email, TeX, internet, MathSciNet, Wikipedia, GoogleScholar, Mathjobs, etc.)

Either way, the view that arXiv may not be optimal for everyone is a minority opinion, and as I am somewhat neutral here I thought I would be a good person to raise it without much fear of scorn. Perhaps, I did a poor job phrasing a question, or chose a wrong forum (I am not a blog person). But I grew up in an understanding that even if people don't like some opinion they should still help other people raise it, not try to stop them. It would have been **nice** if someone helped by either changing the question accordingly or reposting it elsewhere. This would have required some courage and perhaps some minimal effort, of course. But as it is, the whole "arXiv downside affair" left a bad aftertaste. Perhaps, a downside of MO? :)

fedja comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14539)

fedja — Wed, 18 May 2011 09:34:53 -0700

Yeah, "publishing" was an imprecise word because "traditional publishing" means "publishing a polished and refereed paper with at least 6 month delay from the submission date" (the polishing part, the refereeing process and this delay are all quite often important for fixing errors and improving the paper). On the other hand, "announcing" would be imprecise too because ArXiV papers are much more than just announcements. I just don't know English well enough to come up with a right word.

In all other respects, I stand by my words: the effects you mention are the effects of human rivalry, not of the ArXiV. I usually post my papers there exactly when (I believe that) they are ready to submit. I have no desire to compete for priority and I know perfectly well that more often than not one's priority claim primarily means that Gauss and Euler were dead and Bourgain and Tao were looking in some different direction at the moment of writing. The really honorable priority claim is made when somebody solves a problem on which great minds have been stuck for decades. But then a few months hardly matter.

David Speyer comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14538)

David Speyer — Wed, 18 May 2011 07:42:49 -0700

@fedja To be fair, posting to arXiv isn't precisely analogous to publishing.

Work is usually posted to the arXiv not when it is ready to submit, but when it is good enough to make public. Moreover, you cannot simply choose to ignore this by only posting your work when it is ready to submit because, if you are in a situation where you are competing for priority, this will cause you to lose to people who do post work with some polishing left to do. One could ask whether it is good for math that there is an incentive to make priority claims while the work is still being polished.

Obviously, this issue still exists without the arXiv. I suspect that, without the arXiv, things would be different in three ways. (1) This incentive would be lesser. Mathematicians could still mail preprints to colleagues, or speak on unfinished work, but without an authoritative central date stamp, these actions would not be as strong a claim of priority. (2) The incentive might work the other way, causing people to submit less polished work to journals. (3) The situation would be far less democratic. GH Hardy could arose excitement with a simple telegram "HAVE PROVED RIEMMANN HYPOTHESIS"; an unknown graduate student could not. While I don't want to pretend that the situation is perfectly democratic now, mathematicians do read arXiv postings by unknown authors. So the arXiv is a much fairer form of prepublication announcement than mailing preprints or lecturing.

As you can probably guess from (2) and (3), I think that this is largely a good feature of the arXiv. But it is a difference between arXiv posting and traditional publishing.

fedja comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14535)

fedja — Wed, 18 May 2011 05:12:46 -0700

A part of the problem is that the question, as posed, essentially reads as "what are the downsides of THE EXISTENCE of ArXiV?", which, in my perverted mind is more or less equivalent to "what are the downsides of the existence of Jean Bourgain (or Tery Tao)?" I mean, at least 5 of the listed downsides 1-8 can be perfectly well applied to this version, especially those which lament about poor young mathematicians who just cannot keep up with the "speedy competitors". Were it asking "what are the downsides of posting your papers on ArXiV?", it would be much less "subjective and argumentative" but then it would be more or less equivalent to "what are the downsides of publishing your results?". I am at loss as to how one can make this question ArXiV-specific and minimally meaningful, so I wanted to close. If somebody has a good idea of what to discuss here without immediately diving into the issues of meaning of life (or, if you prefer, mathematical research) and without mixing the consequences of human imperfections (from greed and selfishness to slow processing speeds) with the unintended adverse consequences of the correct tool application, I'll vote to reopen.

Ben Webster comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14534)

Ben Webster — Tue, 17 May 2011 15:55:09 -0700

Igor- I think Daniel makes a really important point here, which is that you shouldn't treat "downside of the arXiv" as something whose meaning is obvious. I suspect this is what Andre was referring when he said he didn't know what alternate world he should be comparing the present with-arXiv world to. "Downside" isn't an absolute notion, only one that makes sense when compared to something else. I think another very important gap in your question is whether you want to know about negative things that answerers actually know has happened and which they ascribe to the arXiv (which is its own can of worms; I think its rather dubious to really blame (2) on the arXiv, for example), or just things they guess may have happened, such as your (8).

You're probably right that the fact that people like the arXiv contributed to the question being closed, but whether some occurrence is caused by the arXiv and whether that occurrence is a downside are highly subjective questions, and ones likely to generate argument.

As an example of a question which is similar to yours, but which I think would hold up better would be "Do you (or someone you know) regret having posted to the arXiv?" I can say for me, the answer is yes; there are papers I would not have submitted to the arXiv, and papers I would have waited longer to submit with the benefit of hindsight. Of course, this doesn't cover many of the points of interest to you, but is much more specific.

Daniel Moskovich comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14525)

Daniel Moskovich — Tue, 17 May 2011 08:27:32 -0700

I have some sympathy of Igor Pak's comments; a collective brain-dump list of downsides to arXiv would no doubt be interesting. I'm not sure I find the question well-posed though. When you say "arXiv", do you mean "in the abstract sense", or do you also mean to include specifics of the software, user interface, user support (I actually have plenty of complaints about the latter). Or do you mean something in between?
Also, there's no clearly defined metric as to what constitutes a "downside". Something which you find personally annoying? Something which might damage somebody's career? Something which might retard prompt and accurate dissemination of information?
In total, I would agree with Scott's verdict- it requires more discussion than this format allows, and isn't a very good MO question really. Maybe, indeed, PlanetMO.

Andrew Stacey comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14522)

Andrew Stacey — Mon, 16 May 2011 14:05:39 -0700

Igor,

I just want to respond to one of your points as I think that you are taking a remark out of context. The remark is:

I don't want MO to be a blog that anyone can post on.

You seem to be reading that as "MO is a members-only club"; that is, putting the emphasis on the "anyone". My reading of that remark is that the emphasis should be on the word "blog". I certainly do not want MO turned in to a blog, whether a "members-only" or an "anyone-can-post" type.

The wider point is that there is a group of people who firmly believe that discussions do not belong on MO. There are some potentially great discussions that have been attempted on MO, but they just (we think) don't work there. Sometimes, the discussion is too important to bury in an MO thread. If you do as Peter suggests and find a blog to post your comment on, I think that you will get people coming to discuss it.

Scott Morrison comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14520)

Scott Morrison — Mon, 16 May 2011 13:13:18 -0700

Igor,

I doubt there's any basis to your suggestion "Too bad MO community does not believe there are any." I can think of quite a few things to not like about the arxiv, offhand. A question can be closed for a great many reasons other than "there are no answers". It's certainly unfortunate that so many questions get closed as "subjective and argumentative" when really the community is trying to say "requires more discussion than this format allows" --- as has been said many times on meta, we can't modify the list of "reasons to close".

best, Scott Morrison

igorpak@gmail.com comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14519)

igorpak@gmail.com — Mon, 16 May 2011 11:33:49 -0700

After some thinking, I decided that my question is neither really subjective nor argumentative. For the latter, I was not trying to convince anyone to do anything (that would be a bit hypocritical as I often use arXiv myself), just to let the minority of people who have reservations to list them. Some downsides do exist and just because some people think they are minor, we as a mathematical community should still look into that rather than expect everyone to blindly follow the rest. I am guessing, some senior mathematicians (say, over 40) may remember the word before the arXiv and can really see downsides. I think the downsides are minor but nor irrelevant and MO would have been a good forum for this list, a source where younger participants may learn about these. I didn't mean to have a discussion, but a solid list would be useful. The fact that it was voted "close" feels a bit of a point of view shutter (compare with am_mo_user comment), not something I recommend in a healthy community. As for "subjective", surely questions like these (see below) are a bit more so. Finally, I am a bit put off by the word *anyone* in "I don't want MO to be a blog that anyone can post on" (see above) - I tried hard to write a well reasoned solid post/question with a number of links, etc. and expected a reasonable response. I am not sure why I am viewed to be an outsider of the MO community. Oh, well... In summary, I will not be making any blog posts just so that people can argue with me and tell me how great arXiv is. I know. That was not the point. The point was to make a list of arXiv downsides, large or small. Too bad MO community does not believe there are any.

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/1083/do-good-math-jokes-exist
http://mathoverflow.net/questions/358/examples-of-great-mathematical-writing
http://mathoverflow.net/questions/60457/elementaryshortuseful

Ben Webster comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14518)

Ben Webster — Mon, 16 May 2011 10:17:41 -0700

an_mo_user-

Surely there is some truth to your point. On the other hand, if the downsides question had had a clear and concrete motivation (I'm not really sure what said motivation would be), it surely would have been more positively received. One of the things we look for in an MO question is clarity on what answers are supposed to achieve; in your example, there is a clear, if slightly strange metric (convincing the coauthor) whereas the downsides question had so such criterion. In that sense, your question is not the "mirror image" of the downsides one.

an_mo_user comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14517)

an_mo_user — Mon, 16 May 2011 07:11:49 -0700

In a strict sense this question is off-topic, and to move it elsewhere seems like a good idea. However, I cannot help asking myself whether the following (fictious) question would also be closed.

"Upsides of using arXiv: I want to submit my most recent preprint to arXiv. However, my coauthor does not like the idea too much. So, I need to convince him/her. I already have the following list of arguments. [List of arguments in favor of arXiv]. Are there additional arguments I could give her/him ? "

My point? It seems to me that whether or not 'the community' agrees or disagrees with the point/opinion of a somewhat 'subjective and argumentative' question has, in my opinion, too much influence on whether a discussion is allowed here or not. And to be clear, in my opinion, any influence is too much in this context.

Note: Personally, I have most certainly nothing 'against' the arXiv. I use it a lot, passively and actively; since years almost all my preprints are on arXiv (sometimes I am simply lazy), and all my papers and preprints are on my personal website (and I pay attention that I am allowed to keep them there).

peter.krautzberger comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14510)

peter.krautzberger — Sun, 15 May 2011 20:12:20 -0700

Igor, there are many other ways to have a discussion. A few examples:

use a comment-service like disqus on your own website
use a different web community like reddit (beware of the different discussion culture and the trolls)
Use twitter with a suitable hashtag (say #mathoverflow or #MOdiscuss)
use a math-related forum, a mailing list, a chat system whatever you are comfortable with.

Of course, the main issue will be to convince people to come to the same place and have a discussion with you...

If you want to use a blog, the best established, free services are probably wordpress and blogspot/blogger, both have many mathematical bloggers, although wordpress seems to have a slight lead. Both allow TeX-code to be used for mathematics.

To set up a blog is not harder than using a webmail service (TeX is only slightly more complicated). Pick a service and a simple search will lead to plenty of how-tos.

igorpak@gmail.com comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14509)

igorpak@gmail.com — Sun, 15 May 2011 19:05:26 -0700

I am ok with moving the discussion elsewhere and adding a link to MO question, but have no idea what exactly do I need to do. Does everyone have a blog? Sigh...

peter.krautzberger comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14508)

peter.krautzberger — Sun, 15 May 2011 18:39:47 -0700

After the last discussion on a similar question, we created mathblogging.org/planetmo.

I think this question could benefit from the proposed planetmo-solution: move it to a blog, tag it PlanetMO so that people can find it and finally add a link in the comments of the question inviting people to discuss this at the blog.

theojf comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14507)

theojf — Sun, 15 May 2011 16:33:55 -0700

Maybe I will make one further comment. MathOverflow has, by now, quite broad readership. In particular, the size of the community does increase the potential value of discussions like Op cit. But it also makes it very easy for a user to post a "question" which is largely a chance to express their own views of some argumentative issue. And I think that MO should not be some "group blog for the entire mathematical community".

I think this is one of the stronger reasons I do not like "subjective and argumentative" questions: I don't want MO to be a blog that anyone can post on.

theojf comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14506)

theojf — Sun, 15 May 2011 16:29:23 -0700

I wrote in my comment: "I'm sure that there is a valuable discussion to be had here. On the other hand, I strongly suspect that said discussion should not be had on MathOverflow." My comment, before I decided to move it here, continued:

Your question, especially your introduction, comes across as "subjective and argumentative", and I have voted to close as such. Your long list of complaints about arXiv do not a question make, especially not a question with a well-defined answer. If the question is not closed, I absolutely insist it be CW, as I do not think it's a question for which answers deserve to accrue reputation points.

That said, I maintain that discussing the merits of the arXiv, and in particular discussing when and whether young researchers should upload articles, has much value. Maybe I voted to close simply because I really don't like the style and tone of the question.

theojf comments on "Downsides of the arXiv?" (14505)

theojf — Sun, 15 May 2011 16:25:19 -0700

This thread is for discussing whether http://mathoverflow.net/questions/65090/downsides-of-the-arxiv is an appropriate MathOverflow question.