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ArXiv declares independence from Cornell

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Re: ArXiv declares independence from Cornell

#81

Post by bonoboTP »

davnicwil wrote: post #43
aragilar wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's to be a pre-print server. If someone doesn't know what that means, then they shouldn't be using arXiv.

everyone has a first time they see a thing and don't yet know what it is. Using a brand as a filter where you have to already know what it means to get it is exactly the opposite of what it's supposed to achieve. Consider the most exclusive (successful) brands that exist. Even there, where exclusivity is a brand goal, none of them have this property of being obscure on first contact.

You usually get introduced to it by your academic supervisor or collaborators as a masters or PhD student. If you're a solo researcher who has made a significant contribution on the frontier of science, I'm sure you'll be able to understand how Arxiv works as well. Because I assume you have had some conversations with other experts in the field. If you're a full on autodidact with no contact to any other researchers in the field, well, maybe it's better if you chat with some other people in that field.

Its reasonable to have a tradeoff here to avoid cranks and now AI psychosis slop. You can still post on research gate and academia.edu or you own github page or webhosting.

Re: ArXiv declares independence from Cornell

#82

Post by mort96 »

swiftcoder wrote: post #65

> raised concerns about the proposed $300,000 salary for arXiv’s new CEO, saying it seemed high Is a mid-to-high engineering salary outlandish for a CEO of what is likely to be a fairly major non-profit? Even non-profits have to be somewhat competitive when it comes to salary, and the ideal candidate is likely someone who would be balancing this against a tenured position at a major university

Salaries in the US are so bonkers. Everywhere else outside of the US, $300,000 is an outlandish high salary. To call it "mid to high" is insane.

Re: ArXiv declares independence from Cornell

#83

Post by bonoboTP »

jltsiren wrote: post #31
davnicwil wrote: post #19

Very unrelated to the article, but I think 'arXiv' as a brand is bad, and really detrimental to what the institution aims to accomplish. That is, it's not readily parseable, it really gives an insider term vibe - like this isn't for you if you don't already know what it means or how you should read or say it. It sort of reminds me of the overuse of latin and latinate terms generally in the old professions and, well,…

It's a classic story of someone having to pick a name quickly, which then gets established long before anyone who cares about branding is aware of its existence. The original service didn't even have a name, only a description, and it was amusingly hosted at xxx.lanl.gov. But LANL wasn't really interested in it, and the founder eventually left for Cornell. At that point, the service needed a domain name, but archive.…

I thought the X was an allusion to LaTeX.

Re: ArXiv declares independence from Cornell

#84

Post by light_hue_1 »

frankling_ wrote: post #40

The recent announcement to reject review articles and position papers already smelled like a shift towards a more "opinionated" stance, and this move smells worse. The vacuum that arXiv originally filled was one of a glorified PDF hosting service with just enough of a reputation to allow some preprints to be cited in a formally published paper, and with just enough moderation to not devolve into spam and chaos. It ha…

> Unfortunately, over the years, arXiv has become something like a "venue" in its own right, particularly in ML, with some decently cited papers never formally published and "preprints" being cited left and right. Consider the impression you get when seeing a reference to an arXiv preprint vs. a link to an author's institutional website.

This just isn't true. arXiv is not a venue. There's no place that gives you credit for arXiv papers. No one cares if you cite an arXiv paper or some random website. The vast vast majority of papers that have any kind of attention or citations are published in another venue.

Re: ArXiv declares independence from Cornell

#85

Post by HappyPanacea »

swiftcoder wrote: post #65

> raised concerns about the proposed $300,000 salary for arXiv’s new CEO, saying it seemed high Is a mid-to-high engineering salary outlandish for a CEO of what is likely to be a fairly major non-profit? Even non-profits have to be somewhat competitive when it comes to salary, and the ideal candidate is likely someone who would be balancing this against a tenured position at a major university

arXiv's CEO doesn't need to be a tenured professor equivalent it is a preprint repository ffs.

Re: ArXiv declares independence from Cornell

#86

Post by Cordiali »

davnicwil wrote: post #22
john-titor wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what makes you feel that. I've been publishing preprints close to a decade on arxiv now and never had any particular feelings about it. To me it's just a way to get out your work fast, so that there is already a trace of it on the Internets - nothing more and nothing less. > That is, it's not readily parseable, it really gives an insider term vibe... Isn't that normal with highly specialized research fields?…

It's an opinion, and you feeling no particular way about it is equally valid. But I did justify and maybe to reword slightly, surely if one of the main drivers is opening up research, the brand name should be something that's less obscure and more accessible / understandable as to what it is on first sight? Maybe arXiv evoking the word 'archive' with an ancient Greek twist does that for some, but it's clearly a bit c…

I've never even connected the 'X' to the Greek letter chi. I just kinda accepted it as one of many groovy web 2.0 misspellings in search of a domain and trademark.

Re: ArXiv declares independence from Cornell

#87

Post by HappyPanacea »

mort96 wrote: post #82
swiftcoder wrote: post #65

> raised concerns about the proposed $300,000 salary for arXiv’s new CEO, saying it seemed high Is a mid-to-high engineering salary outlandish for a CEO of what is likely to be a fairly major non-profit? Even non-profits have to be somewhat competitive when it comes to salary, and the ideal candidate is likely someone who would be balancing this against a tenured position at a major university

Salaries in the US are so bonkers. Everywhere else outside of the US, $300,000 is an outlandish high salary. To call it "mid to high" is insane.

Yes the obvious play is to move human labor to cheaper countries like France (including CEO of course).

Re: ArXiv declares independence from Cornell

#88

Post by OtherShrezzing »

vl wrote: post #60
binsquare wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For everyone else, The reason is because arxiv is growing significantly leading to 297,000 deficit in operating costs for 2025 alone. Corenell has helped with donation a long with other organizations that pay membership fees. As a result, donors + leaders of arxiv think it's best to spin off to increase funding.

What is unclear why they need stuff of 27 and 6.7 million to operate essentially static hosting website in 2026.

I don't see it as an especially exuberant structure or budget. I've seen larger teams with bigger budgets struggle to maintain smaller applications.

I've contracted into some consultancy teams which you could uncharitably describe as "15 people and $4mn/yr to create one PDF per month".

Re: ArXiv declares independence from Cornell

#89

Post by kergonath »

bonoboTP wrote: post #69

I fear their Mozilla-ification and Wikipedia-ification. Scope creep, various outreach feel-good programs, ballooning costs, lost focus etc. And other types of enshittification. Any change to the basic premise will be a negative step. They should just be boring quiet unopininionated neutral background infrastructure.

> They should just be quiet unopininionated neutral background infrastructure.

Exactly. It should be a utility. Not quite dumb pipe, but not too far either.

Re: ArXiv declares independence from Cornell

#90

Post by kergonath »

adamnemecek wrote: post #2

Good call, ArXiv seems like one of the most important institutions out there right now.

The French government put a bit of money on the table to help researchers fulfil their open science requirements for government and EU grants, and funded the HAL repository ( https://hal.science/ ). It’s much smaller than arXiv, but it exists. In other countries like the UK there are clusters of smaller repositories as well, but it’s not as well centralised.
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