Donatello Dolce
MauvePanther,
On the one hand, you and others are complaining about physical outcomes (i.e. your papers being rejected by people working for arXiv).

On the other hand, the majority of arXiv papers (presumably including yours) are in effect saying that 100% of physical outcomes are 100% due to laws of nature and randomness.

So, while you and others might interpret the unpalatable outcomes as “deplorable practices”, “decisions” being made, reasoning occurring, and “not contribut[ing] to scientific progress”, in reality it is just the inevitable unfolding of the impersonal laws of nature and randomness occurring, because seemingly there are no other possible causes of outcomes.

So, can you please clarify whether you think that there are ANY other possible causes of outcomes (palatable or unpalatable) other than the types of things we might describe as physics’ “laws of nature” and “randomness”?

      Lorraine Ford

      Lorraine Ford 100% of physical outcomes are 100% due to laws of nature and randomness.

      In your deterministic view, you are assuming that we humans know exactly the initial condition of the physical systems that affect decisions, but real life is a very very complex system and, fortunately, unexpected things happen in our life. If future facts are already written in the solutions of the physics laws we have no access to that information (except for very simple and controllable elementary systems). But I don't want to discuss these things here.

      Lorraine Ford in reality it is just the inevitable unfolding of the impersonal laws of nature and randomness occurring, because seemingly there are no other possible causes of outcomes.

      If you believe this then you should not complain to me, should you go complain to the laws of nature.

      Lorraine Ford So, can you please clarify whether you think that there are ANY other possible causes of outcomes (palatable or unpalatable) other than the types of things we might describe as physics’ “laws of nature” and “randomness”?

      Dear CornflowerCicada, try this little experiment yourself: convince yourself that you don't want to continue this discussion here, if you really try this you can get this outcome regardless "the types of things we might describe as physics’ “laws of nature” and “randomness”". I hope this little experiment will be successful.

      Admin Comment: Users please refrain from making personal attacks on other users. Such behaviour is not tolerated here. Things are boiling over and getting very heated again.

              OK, sorry. I would just like to clarify that censorship, like any other injustice, or the tragic episodes like those mentioned by CornflowerCicada, cannot be blamed on the “laws of nature” and “randomness”, or on "the outcomes of automatic processes" whatever that means. On the contrary, we must always act to avoid injustice as we must always try to create the most favorable conditions for the development of science. From my essay: "Freedom of scientific thought, like freedom of thought in general, will always be under a threat that will take ever new forms in every age. For this reason, each of us must always be aware, especially in less suspicious eras, that freedom is precious and must always be preserved".

              Coming back to the main topic "science in the internet era", what just happened in this thread could be indicative of what is reported in my essay: "It is easy to give some predictions about the future of science by observing the evolution of threads in web forums or other social networks in general. One of the effects of the internet [discussions] will be a flattening downward of the scientific debate with an ever greater shortage of new challenging ideas and an increasing self-celebration of old super-inflated concepts [...] ".

              What happens in arXiv or in similar institutions with obscure policies typical of social media, could have similar dynamics (but much more veiled) to what typically happens in forums and social media, where it is easy, without a rigid application of the scientific method, to divert the discussion onto redundant tracks and sterile ideas. The scientific method is the only weapon we have to discriminate between fringe science and challenging new ideas.

                Donatello Dolce
                MauvePanther,
                What I am trying to get at is that you and others are blaming unpalatable outcomes (the rejection of papers) on people who work for arXiv, and yet the very papers that were rejected tell a story of a world where all outcomes are fully accounted for by laws of nature and randomness. The papers tell a story of a fully self-sufficient world that doesn't need any decisions to be made, or any reasoning to occur, by people who work for arXiv.

                Re "... what just happened in this thread could be indicative of what is reported in my essay: "It is easy to give some predictions about the future of science by observing the evolution of threads in web forums or other social networks in general. One of the effects of the internet [discussions] will be a flattening downward of the scientific debate...":

                You are seemingly in effect claiming that I am hijacking debate on your essay. But from my point of view, I am merely pointing out what I would claim are obvious inconsistencies in a philosophical approach or a way of seeing the world. These inconsistencies relate to your “unspeakable hypotheses and established truths that cannot be questioned”, where the “unspeakable hypotheses” is the idea that people, as opposed to laws and randomness, could actually have a physical effect on the world; where people working for arXiv could actually, literally, be physically responsible for rejecting a paper.

                  Alaya Kouki

                  Don't be so sure about that. Among the many stories that I can extensively testify, besides those of papers reclassified or rejected even if published in highly ranked journals at submission, is one story of a paper reclassified with the advice "we will reclassify the paper as requested by the author when the article is published" or something like that (about 2010). This would have been fine, except that the article was already published at that time and the author specified the journal-ref data at submission. OK, it was a conference paper (but peer-reviewed if I well remember). But what did they want the author to do? Did they want a conference paper published in a peer-reviewed journal? Or is this simply one of several episodes showing the deep contradictions of the arXiv moderation system?

                    Alaya Kouki
                    I have been (and still am) in the same situation over the last few years. Many of my articles have had to wait for acceptance by mainstream journals before they can be listed on the arXiv. One, the one on the precession of the perihelion of planets in Newtonian physics, was rejected even after being published in a mainstream journal with an impact factor greater than 4... Yet I have over 120 articles included in the archive.

                        Donatello Dolce
                        This is actually a big problem, also the fact that the business industry have began to rule in academia.

                        "Certainly, if you want to be funded, don't criticize arXiv and keep well away from the censorship danger zone by proposing ideas that might annoy some academic interests. On the contrary, to obtain funding easily, you have to try to ride the highest wave of the latest mainstream topic, trying to accommodate the ideas of those who could grant you the funds."

                        This makes the scientist to prostitutes. No good...

                        Admin comment: While I see your point, likening scientists to prostitutes comes across as vulgar and in poor taste. As such this is not acceptable.

                            Donatello Dolce
                            The problem could perhaps be expressed as follows:

                            Does any physics’ theoretical model of the world (as described in, or implied by, an arXiv paper) have the explanatory tools needed to explain why only one very definite outcome occurred, when there were at least three possible outcomes?

                            Does any physics’ theoretical model of the world have the explanatory tools needed to explain why an electronic version of the arXiv paper is now physically held in only one of the following folders on the arXiv computer: the rejected folder, the physics.gen-ph folder, or the hep-th folder? (Or other equivalent ways of categorising papers.)

                            This very definite, verifiable physical outcome can only be explained in terms of human reasoning and agency having an effect on physical outcomes, as well as the usual suspects (laws of nature and randomness). Yet theoreticians continue to insist that the usual suspects (laws of nature and randomness) are the only aspects of the world that are necessary to explain physical outcomes.

                              Hello MauvePanther I appreciated your essay and basically agree with your content and conclusion. I am an independent scholar with no affiliations with the scientific community. My only contacts are two essays in FQXi’s competitions. One of those is in this year’s competition. My work falls into the realm of the last paragraph of your essay: “As far as I can testify, there is currently no fertile ground in modern science to welcome possible new conceptual paradigms….” In my current essay: “Could Science Be Different And Improved? Yes. A specific Proposal.” , I introduce what I consider to be “new ground breaking conceptual paradigms”. I do not want science to miss out on an opportunity to substantially improve itself and for my work “to fall into oblivion”. I am 79 years old and I want to “pass the torch” on my research into the hands of competent scientific collaborators who can introduce it into the new realm of science. Do you have any suggestions on how this can be done and who can do it? My only other “published” work is my essay in FQXi’s last contest. It’s title is Clarification of Physics: A Derivation of A Complete, Predictive Model of “Our” Multiverse.” It can be found in FQXi’s records - simply type in fqxi and the title and you can access the essay and the pertinent comments. I think you will find it to be pertinent to my question. Thanks for your essay. Hopefully, you can find the fertile ground for a successful introduction of my work.

                              Admin Comment: Please be respectful of other entrants and keep on topic. Please don’t reply just to advertise your own essay.

                              quote
                              How far is the boundary of scientific freedom today? How much is the scientific debate biased by academic gurus and corporate interests? Are there unspeakable hypotheses and established truths that cannot be questioned? Are there visionary scientists scared to propose and pursue their intuitions? This essay poses a serious criticism about scientific communication in the Internet era, in view of the advent of Artificial Intelligence. We analyze the arXiv moderation system and its contrast with the very essence of the scientific method according to which “the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual” [Galileo (1610)].
                              end of quote

                              To cut to the chase I will go straight to the HAIRBALL.

                              I have tangled with ARXIV repeatedly and do not like them . However, I view ARXIV as having a selection process favoring elite universities, which at times DOES have a hard kernel of truth to it. Case in point, in Cosmology, with rare exceptions, sees most of its breakthroughs in places like HARVARD, MIT, and CALTECH. And of course the top ten universities in China, EU and the UK, as well

                              If one wants to nit pick, what I can say is this "bias" does reflect where the action is in terms of most scientific breakthroughs.

                              I view it as OBNOXIOUS at times, but it is undeniable that there is SOME truth to it.

                              Does this mean I like what ARXIV does ? NOPE, but if one wants to curate impactful research, what they do is
                              not wrong

                              Its painful, but even in its present iteration, I understand the system. Does not mean I like it, but if one wants high impact articles in say Cosmology, Quantum Gravity and the like one does have a sure fire way to find them

                              So ARXIV with all of its problems is a quick source to hit upon.

                              That it is at times unfair is yet another issue entirely.

                                Andrew Beckwith

                                Andrew Beckwith Its painful, but even in its present iteration, I understand the system.

                                I would have nothing to say if we were talking about business and predominant positions here. But we are talking about science here, and the subject is very different. In science "the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual [Galileo 1610]".

                                It is clear that the most influential universities are those that contribute most to the scientific debate but these universities rarely deal with controversial ideas or ideas that are not in line with the mainstream ideas that they themselves have defined. On the contrary, IMHO, important breakthroughs in science could come from marginal universities, in a totally unexpected way and also in contrast with the interests of large institutions.

                                At the bottom, there is the very important problem, which emerged on many occasions in this forum, that arXiv reclassifies peer-reviewed articles. How dare they question months of peer-review with a superficial moderation system of a few days? The most puzzling thing is that arXiv NEVER gives reasons. The ""The arXiv moderation process is not a peer-review process. arXiv staff and moderators do not evaluate the validity of the scientific process and cannot give feedback on the submission. " [arXiv blog].

                                "arXiv moderation actually resembles an inquisition process where authors do not know what they are accused
                                of, some selected authors are allegedly blacklisted, authors cannot defend themselves at any stage, much less on objective grounds and on the merit of scientific facts, authors do not know what criteria are adopted, the stated policies are unabashedly obscure, it is not known who judges authors or if there are “hidden” members in the management, they do not seem to recognize the authority of any other scientific institution and are not judged by anyone. Furthermore, for “selected” cases, i.e. for those controversial preprints that should be evaluated with the most scientific rigor, the final decision seems to be taken by authority from the "the founder and some leaders" even in opposition to the opinion expressed by the moderators themselves, as was confidentially reported to me by an insider whose identity I cannot disclose. “Sometimes” the verdict seems to be already written before the process
                                starts. One wonders how all this could have happened. Who gave such a monopoly of scientific information and the consequent power to condition science into the hands of a single institution with such unscientific policies?"

                                So to speak, ArXiv instills in the author's head the doubt that his results, certified by reviewers and editors, are wrong without saying how and why? The author of an article published in a journal has the right to know if his article is correct or not, at least to withdraw or correct it, and to prevent others from producing wrong publications on it. Doesn't the question seem paradoxical to you?

                                If you want to keep an idea secret, post it on physics:gen-ph. You will be sure that no one will ever take it seriously.

                                This evidently violates the very essence of the scientific method, is unacceptable and is blocking the free flow of ideas in science. Ideas that may turn out to be wrong but surely can be inspiring for someone if they have passed peer-review. Science is also made up of (apparently or truly) wrong ideas, it wouldn't be a shame if one of these ideas should unfortunately pass through arXiv. I attribute a large part of the crisis of theoretical physics, foundations of quantum mechanics, partly also in cosmology and other disciplines not closely linked to experimental results, to the policies of arXiv. As far as I can see, arXiv bears great responsibility for the sterility of the current scientific debate.

                                "“It is just an ordinary day at the headquarters of the physics preprint archive. The operators
                                are going through their daily routine and are discussing what to do about recent emails:
                                arXiv moderator: Some 'reader complaints' have come in regarding preprints posted to the
                                archive by Drs. Einstein and Yang. Dr. Einstein, who is not even an academic, claims to have
                                shown in his preprint that mass and energy are equivalent, while Professor Yang is
                                suggesting, on the basis of an argument I find completely unconvincing, that parity is not
                                conserved in weak interactions. What action shall I take?
                                arXiv advisory board: Abject nonsense! Just call up their records and set their 'barred'
                                flags to TRUE.
                                arXiv moderator: And here's a letter from one 'Hans Bethe' supporting an author whose
                                paper we deleted from the archive as being 'inappropriate'.
                                arXiv advisory board: Please don't bother me with all these day to day matters! Prof. Bethe
                                is not in the relevant 'field of expertise', so by rule 23(ii) we simply ignore anything he says.
                                Just delete his email and send him rejection letter #5.
                                The first portion of the above exchange is fictional of course, but might well have happened
                                had Einstein and Yang had dealings with the physics preprint archive arXiv.org, administered
                                by Cornell University, today. The second part is not fictional.”" [Nobel Laureate Brian Josephson]

                                    Ulla Mattfolk It is just a word with a certain meaning, and that meaning is useable here, are you aware of it or not... Sorry.

                                      the points i remember and appreciate reading after a few days of reading are -

                                      • is the social media of the 90'- internet of the scientists
                                      • there is an alternate place for posting papers called with vixira
                                      • if a paper has more authors this imply at least certain dialogue between them (chimeric writing)
                                      • there is potential for change in the way is moderated to accept scientific writings ( altough irelevant im curious ,i dont know can someone send papers, article by post / delivery email?)
                                        offtopic- i remember reading an other satire essay concerning more or less automatic paper submission by a certain category of people (also there was an issue concerning how many people reads the content )

                                      maybe there should be some directed (person A call / write points /to B C D E )recommendation assignments with checkpoints , or some sort of connection between the readers and the authors that would slow down certain aspects and accelerate other objectives . Or an other idea for famous authors a certain number of followers/ slots /

                                      not considering myself a positive example , still i have the concern that people produce write read watch, consume ,they mirror and give back less and less . or use a simple , not clear or explicit, format /communication protocol to give back

                                      I am in ,my own way INFURIATED by Arxiv. Infuriated. However, I also find them useful. Finding them demeaning and worse does not mean that I can not learn something from their output I do.

                                      What I am amazed at though is why they favor MAJOR Universities, and the exclusion of others. I.e. those in the Top tier do get in, without too much difficulty

                                      Let me make this plain. I admire some of their OUTPUT. I.e. a broken clock is right 2 times a day. Could they do better ? Absolutely

                                      However, UNLIKE JOURNALS, there is NO paywall

                                      Its free to access their OUTPUT

                                      A. Big THANK you for the output being more or less free. I wish the JOURNALS would do that
                                      B. Why they go KOOK hunting, or put people on lists, is well mystifying to me, They do

                                      Very good experience from Arxiv, and a big thank you for the free access
                                      A whopping F grade for their ideas as to whom should be allowed IN their output roster

                                      In a word they entertain, educate me, and at the same piss me off.

                                      Well done though, as a commendatory for information sake

                                      If they are worried about budget and computer access I am certain a rich donor could
                                      give them a major upgrade as far as computer work and facilities

                                        Christian Corda

                                        Dear Christian, I'm curious if you've broken the record of 20 publications systematically reclassified to the same author on the same idea. Many of these papers were published in peer-reviewed journals even before submission to arXiv, others were conference papers.

                                        My feeling is that the phenomenon of reclassification or rejection is much bigger than one might imagine. No one can know for sure how frequent this practice is also because some papers are then reclassified on the main lists. It is impossible to keep track of what happened.

                                        Incredibly, the reclassification back to the desired list is done by arXiv even the day after the announcement of the reclassified paper on physics:gen-ph. I know for sure (documented) the case of a reclassification that occurred only on the single day of the announcement. The day after the paper was spontaneously readmitted in hep-th with the motivation of a "late replay of one of the moderators". This paper was published in a prestigious letter physics journal before submission. Of course, while this was an admitted arXiv mistake, the article was not subsequently re-announced in hep-th to remedy the mistake. The fact is that with this machination the article has left no trace of the extemporaneous reclassification that took place and has not been noticed by any theoretical physicist, that is, by none of the reference target audience for the paper.

                                        Does it seem to you that people who do science, after obtaining a PhD, after having a research grant in a prestigious institute, after waiting for their article to be published in a prestigious peer-reviewed journal, can be treated in this way? That is, to be censored with such brazen machinations without even knowing what criticisms are raised and without the possibility of defending oneself on the scientific merit of the evidence (certified by publication) brought?

                                        This type of behavior goes not only against science but also against basic human rights.

                                          Andrew Beckwith

                                          I would like to say clearly that I am not against arXiv. Mine is a harsh criticism but aimed at its improvement.

                                          I use it on a daily basis and could not work without it. For example, I now urgently need to read the paper "N.D. Birrell and L.H. Ford (Phys. Rev. D 22, 330 (1980))" (suggested by a referee for new comments in forthcoming papers) but my institution is not registered and it is a big problem for me (if anyone could send it to me by mail I would be immensely grateful)

                                          The fact that arXiv is free just doesn't mean it doesn't cost anything. “If you're not paying for the product, you are the product”. This line was originally said by Mr. Steve Jobs (Founder of Apple Inc).

                                          As an indirect consequence of arXiv policies academic journals have started to apply the "open choice" (if you don't see the link read my essay): "This copyright attribution
                                          conflict has generated a silent war between arXiv and the academic publishing companies
                                          from which the latter have evidently emerged defeated. Scientific journals have devised a
                                          form of “open access” publishing in an attempt to compete with arXiv by making journal
                                          papers freely accessible to everyone directly from the journal's website. However, authors
                                          must pay thousands of dollars per article to obtain this option as compensation for lost
                                          revenue and in support of the publication expenses. Evidently all this causes a serious issue of
                                          free access to research as there are few researchers or institutions which have the economic
                                          means to face such an expense for each article published"

                                          More and more journals are becoming purely "open access", and more journals will migrate to this choice in the future , until only the most prestigious ones will resist, the ones that mainly accept publications from the established researchers which can guarantee a large number of citations at very low risk.

                                          Even though arXiv is free, it will end up with the authors themselves paying for peer-review and publication costs, on the order of thousands of dollars per paper. After thirty years of experimenting with arXiv and similar repositories, is it really worth it?

                                          This is a huge problem for the future of science and I don't see a straightforward solution.

                                          In any case, everything would be more acceptable if arXiv would provide the reasons for their decisions giving the authors the right of defense, at least in the most controversial cases and in cases in which the papers havepassed serious peer reviews. At least in this arXiv should respect academic journals, since it is also thanks to their work that they can exist and thanks to their (often tacit) concession on copyright that they can continue to give free access to papers.

                                            A very interesting essay and dialog.
                                            I would like to zoom out a bit and take a wider perspective than just arXiv, with a couple items for consideration:
                                            (One) Nowhere do I see the importance or impact of the shear volume of papers and article being submitted to peer-reviewered journals, to arXiv, uploaded to alternate discussion forums, etc. To some degree, the discussion around 'automated processes' by arXiv appears to be a response to this shear volume challenge (which arXiv appears to have some significant negative impacts).
                                            I do not see how peer-reviewed journals, with the (relatively) long time frames for review can hope to address this volume challenge. At the same time the importance of peer-reviewing, verifiable results, and Q&A with authors seems critical for scientific progress. How to address this volume challenge and respect for the scientific method?
                                            ('Taking time for review' seems to believe we can walk backward in time, when many fewer ideas were proposed.)
                                            So we need new ideas on how to manage the increasing volume of information. While I have many reservations about AI, as a tool in support of human knowledge, I think it can be uniquely useful here - if used appropriately ("in support of" not "in place of" human knowledge).

                                            (Two) Another consideration is addressing not simply 'fringe science' but intentionally malicious information aimed at dis-information, sowing chaos, or wrecking a person's or institution's reputation. A couple of the arXiv experiences seem to lean toward this latter concern. This issue gets magnified by the volume challenge.
                                            A few years ago this very organization (FQXi) had such an issue with the essay contests, where people were intentionally downgrading essays to elevate others - so this is neither theoretical nor in some unknown arena (even if the FQXi example is less impactful than truly malicious efforts to malign reputations).
                                            This is a much wider concern today than, say, 50 years ago, again partly due to the volume challenge.
                                            If we want many more ideas to be put forward (more ideas are being put forward whether we want them or not), then this concern needs to be addressed.
                                            Definitely connected to the volume challenge, this concern cannot be addressed via manual 'peer-reviewed' methods. Things are moving too fast and alternate pathways will be found - even if the alternatives are not adequate to the task (which is the real problem today and maybe could be said of arXiv).

                                            I hear the issues of arXiv and those of peer-reviewed journals - however times are a-changin and solutions that can address (at least) these two considerations will require the use of new tools.

                                              Donald Palmer

                                              The issue is far bigger than arXiv and these concerns can be extended to the entire internet and the "media age" we are experiencing. With the advent of the internet, as with arXiv, the volume of information circulating has increased dramatically, much more than a human being can absorb. But is all this information circulating on the internet necessary? Just think of the news, whose flow has significantly increased with the internet, but are we really better informed? Personally I don't feel informed if I only access the news on the net. Considering that print newspapers are disappearing, this poses a serious problem. Among the various fake news, the type of "non-peer-reviewed" information of the internet puts flat earthers and scientific luminaries on the same level. As I say in my essay, on the internet everyone talks but nobody listens, so that important news and those who have something serious to say are covered by the chatter of the mob and isolated in a hidden corner of the net where no one will ever go looking.

                                              Using AI to discriminate between scientific ideas would be the end of science. As I write in the essay, a natural selection would take place among scientists until only clones remain like Sheldon Cooper from the TV show The Big Bang Theory. This task cannot be delegated to AI at least until it is itself able to develop the next scientific revolution. If and when this happens I don't know exactly what the purpose of the human being will be, without the possibility of seeking answers about one's own existence.

                                              But the scientific community is also a social experiment which in many cases anticipates the common society and as such we must be the first to face this problem for two reasons: we were the first to experience it and science is made up of facts (2+2= 4) for which it is possible to discriminate between what is correct and what is rubbish.
                                              From my point of view, peer review is currently irreplaceable albeit painful, and we must not give in to the temptation and pressure of institutions such as arXiv that try to bypass it.

                                              The Internet and arXiv have lived a 30-year honeymoon in which everything was granted to them: copyright theft, uncontrolled fake news, privacy theft, economic scams, manipulation of political information, illicit trafficking and all sorts of contents indecorous.

                                              But the scientific community is also a social experiment which in many cases anticipates the common society and as such we must be the first to face this problem for two reasons: we were the first to experience it and science is made up of facts (2+2= 4) for which it is possible to discriminate between what is correct and what is rubbish.
                                              From my point of view, peer review is currently irreplaceable albeit painful, and we must not give in to the temptation and pressure of institutions such as arXiv that try to bypass it.

                                              The Internet has lived a 30-year honeymoon in which everything was granted to them without limits: copyright theft, uncontrolled fake news, privacy theft, economic scams, manipulation of political information, illicit trafficking and all sorts of content indecorous.

                                              As far as science is concerned, it would be enough if arXiv would declare a limit a little narrower than the omnipotence it enjoys (see also the essay "A Robust Community-Based Credit System to Enhance Peer Review in Scientific Research" present in this competition). It would be enough if it would respect the result of the peer-review done by scientific journals in controversial cases of ideas not in line with the mainstream. Unfortunately, this does not happen, so publications in which nothing new is said are proliferating. Like Wile E. Coyote, already extremely inflated theories are patched by creating increasingly complex and bizarre constructions, but without new ideas compared to those that have not worked for decades, the Road Runner will always manage to escape. For example, in theoretical physics there are hundreds of preprints a week but in the last decades there has rarely been any progress or new actual ideas. The volume of information proliferates because by now publishing in scientific journals has become secondary to publication on arXiv. Scientists, like the mass media, consider arXiv publications as a sort of scientific certification that does not actually exist as the moderation system does not provide feedback. And posting on arXiv is simple, just don't say anything new but say it in a way that it seems like there is something new. One can easily produce infinite papers in this way. Academics are familiar with this game of the fine-tunings and of the dark/hidden/super/M/extra/black/spooky/conjecture/etc sectors. It only takes one paper to demonstrate a new paradigm of science, you don't need thousands of papers. That is just the kind of paper that probably won't pass the arXiv censorship because it will make thousands of papers look outdated.

                                              Re-establish the role of scientific publications, primarily by ensuring that arXiv or similar institutions do not denigrate, reject or reclassify (censorship) articles that have passed peer-review in highly ranked academic journals, and also the number of useless publications will decrease.

                                                I am glad we agree on the challenge of huge volumes of information (useful or not). This challenge needs to be addressed - both in the wider world and in the scientific community. The last several years, in general, and Mr. Musk’s attempts with Twitter, in particluar, show this to be a difficult problem. A key aspect of this challenge is my second point - mis-information, which is also an increasing problem in the wider internet.

                                                If we did not have the volume challenge, then moving back to peer-reviewed solutions might solve the issue. You comment: the scientific community “in many cases anticipates the common society and as such we must be the first to face this problem”. Personally I do not think scientists are the first to face these challenges - and I agree the scientific community should address them. However both challenges need to be addressed - volume and mis-information.

                                                Peer-review seems to me like staying with spreadsheets (manual compilation of information), when analyzing information works only in small scale situations. As has been shown with the use of ‘big data’ sets and even Large Language Models (LLM - like ChatGPT), huge volumes cannot be addressed by manual spreadsheet-like solutions. Entirely new tools are needed. Automated or semi-automated solutions are required (not simply desired). The question is not whether to use them, but how to use them and to use them effectively. So I disagree that “Using AI to discriminate between scientific ideas would be the end of science.” I think we have to use tools that can address the volume challenge, such as AI. The question then becomes how to use the tools such that they are effective - in particular that they can address the mis-information challenge.

                                                Simply putting AI ‘in charge’ of identifying what is correct and what is mis-information has already failed in the past several years (and likely would lead to the end of science). The many forms of AI have to be governed, managed, taught how to properly address the challenge(s). A general purpose AI tool is unlikely to achieve this, especially in the scientific community. It is an as-yet unformed (or uninformed) tool that needs to be properly designed for the appropriate purpose. A number of AI companies are building special purpose AI tools that enhance what a human can do (not replace an intelligent human). This is what is needed to process massive numbers of preprints and publications - through enhancing human capabilities.

                                                I read (and commented on) the essay "A Robust Community-Based Credit System to Enhance Peer Review in Scientific Research”. The proposal lacks a means of ensuring fairness, which goes to the point above about the mis-information challenge (a free market economy still needs the governmental structures to enforce laws and ensure fairness). It does attempt to introduce appropriate incentives that could reduce the proliferation of essentially the same articles and increase the chance of gaining really new ideas. The proposal does seem to address the mis-information challenge (if there is an enforcement structure behind it), however it does not directly address the volume challenge.

                                                I will suggest both need to be addressed and wonder how you recommend addressing enforcement of rules (especially to ensure qualified people are in charge of the systems). Also do you think the reduction of useless publications would bring the numbers of them needing to be peer-reviewed to spreadsheet like level that can be handled ‘manually’?