What is your definition of a vanity press? Mine is that it will publish anything from anybody.
Sure, there's lots of good stuff on there. But there's lots which is not good. Publishing there is not doing science. Science requires peer review.
Its a wonderful resource, but when overworked journalists (or worse, AI) just picks up a paper from there and writes a breathless article on how cool this new idea is, it is misleading to the general public.
Worse, it can get the general public (and from the comments here, even people working in the field) to forget what science is and why arXiv is not a scientific journal.
In math and theoretical physics the arxiv is the default place to publish and where one goes to find the best and most current work. Papers take a long time to review (years) particularly hard and good papers and publication in journals mainly serves the needs of bean counting dean's and quality control morons in the administration. Actual scientific communication is via the arxiv. Self selection mitigates most ills you describe someone who regularly posts crap on the arxiv will do themselves damage professionally and disappear.
Comments
What is your definition of a vanity press? Mine is that it will publish anything from anybody.
Sure, there's lots of good stuff on there. But there's lots which is not good. Publishing there is not doing science. Science requires peer review.
Its a wonderful resource, but when overworked journalists (or worse, AI) just picks up a paper from there and writes a breathless article on how cool this new idea is, it is misleading to the general public.
Worse, it can get the general public (and from the comments here, even people working in the field) to forget what science is and why arXiv is not a scientific journal.
In math and theoretical physics the arxiv is the default place to publish and where one goes to find the best and most current work. Papers take a long time to review (years) particularly hard and good papers and publication in journals mainly serves the needs of bean counting dean's and quality control morons in the administration. Actual scientific communication is via the arxiv. Self selection mitigates most ills you describe someone who regularly posts crap on the arxiv will do themselves damage professionally and disappear.
Not saying that it isn't useful. It's just not science.