I read the tone of this as essentially neutral, I would have liked to have seen some numbers on the propotion of retractions.
Key notes are:
* arXiv allows authors to withdraw papers whenever they’d like (with as much or little detail about their reasons as they care to provide).
* All prior versions remain online, without notation that the paper was withdrawn. (Without notation!!)
* Roughly two-thirds of biomedical, physics, math preprints are eventually published in peer reviewed journals.
The take aways are that a third of STEM preprints are never submitted (in arXiv form) for peer review, and an unknown proportion are withdrawn with no obvious indication that happened.
Key notes are:
* arXiv allows authors to withdraw papers whenever they’d like (with as much or little detail about their reasons as they care to provide).
* All prior versions remain online, without notation that the paper was withdrawn. (Without notation!!)
* Roughly two-thirds of biomedical, physics, math preprints are eventually published in peer reviewed journals.
The take aways are that a third of STEM preprints are never submitted (in arXiv form) for peer review, and an unknown proportion are withdrawn with no obvious indication that happened.