Comment by IceMetalPunk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by IceMetalPunk | Hacker News Reader

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Editors of arxiv: "We aren't the place to publish insubstantial discussions. There are other places for that."

Guys who wrote the paper: "But it's substantial!"

Like... obviously the guys who wrote the paper think it's substantial, or they wouldn't have submitted it. The very idea of "we think it's good, so we want to publish this without anyone telling us it's not" is... silly. As a developer, this is like someone opening a PR, then getting mad if the PR is rejected upon a quick code review because "Well, I think it's good code!" Of course you do, that's why you opened the PR, but the whole point of review is to get others' opinions in case you're wrong.

Get a disinterested expert third party to review the work and say it's worth publishing, then you can complain to arxiv.

Do not misquote. The direct quote is right there.

"There are many journals which would be interested in publishing a well-argued synthesis of existing evidence against the standard hot big bang interpretation. But MNRAS, with its focus on publication of significant new astronomical results, is not one of them."

This isn't rejection of a PR based on merit, it's selectively refusing to review a PR.

I open PRs to facilitate discussion and get feedback.

Or, taking the other approach, sure, you can publish it. Just not on arxiv.

Arxiv's editors decide what arxiv publishes. That's what editors are supposed to do.

> Arxiv's editors decide what arxiv publishes.

Yes, and arxiv's editors apparently have no problem publishing lots of other papers that are at least as "out of mainstream" as these. So whatever criteria they are using don't appear to be being applied consistently.

Yep, which is literally what the editors told them according to their own account.

And, that is the problem.

"We have standards which your paper doesn't reach" is a problem? Is your ideal someone that publishes any and all papers submitted to them regardless of quality?

bc I say so is a poor argument and you know it

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