Richard SeverFeb 27

New version of our preprint on bioRxiv about bioRxiv. Now that’s what I call a revision – 6 years after the first version!

It has new data about our progress and highlights from a massive user survey.

bioRxiv continues to grow – a brief spike and lag in the pandemic (details of which are included) but a steady increase in submissions since then. % revisions, license choice, etc. all fairly constant. 0.1% withdrawal rate is comparable to journal retraction rates.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/833400v2

Show threadRichard SeverFeb 27
So when do authors preprint? Many do long before they submit to a journal (to get feedback to improve the work?); many submit around the same time (just want the work out?). Only a minority are submitting once the paper is under review [evidence against claims by some detractors].
Show threadRichard SeverFeb 27

What about feedback/comments? Authors clearly want and are getting feedback on articles, but it’s mostly private, via email. Cultural change is needed for this to move to the public comment section, and it will always be distributed (social media, etc.).

Meanwhile, MS Word is still what the vast majority of authors write papers with. A reminder for those of us hoping for new authoring tools that we must meet people where they are.

Show threadDan Goodman
@richardsever is that in or out of proportion to the number of journals that only accept submissions in Word?
Feb 27 at 12:10amWeb
Show threadRichard SeverMar 3
@neuralreckoning oh I don;t know the answer to that. but I don't think it's a consequence of that