A preprint whose numbers changed substantially at publication — what changed since

On the subject in the title: A preprint whose numbers changed substantially at publication — what changed since Working notes rather than a conclusion.

A preprint question rather than a question about the finding in it.

The manuscript is on a preprint server, dated, with a version number I have written down. It has not been through review and the authors say so in the header. What I cannot work out is how much weight that leaves it carrying.

I would like the reasoning rather than a rule. "Wait for publication" is not usable when the publication may be two years away and the question is now.

Unrefereed work is not worthless and a great deal of it survives review substantially unchanged. That is the accurate framing and it is not a licence to treat it as final.

Unrefereed work is not worthless. A great deal of it survives review substantially unchanged. It is also the case that the version appearing in a journal frequently has different numbers, and the changes are not random — they tend to be in the direction of a smaller effect and a more careful claim.

Worth reading the earlier posts in this thread before acting on mine.

Where I part company with the opening post, and it is a narrow parting.

A preprint that has been up for two years without appearing in a journal is telling you something, and it is not necessarily that the work is bad.

The confident version of this sentence would be wrong, so here is the hedged one.

If you cite a preprint in a maintained document here, the convention is to label it in the sentence and to note the check date. The document review will catch the update.

Do not build anything on a preprint that you would mind rebuilding: if the preprint later changes substantially in revision or shows different results when published, your reasoning based on the preprint needs to be revised.

Confirming post #6 from a second method, which matters more than confirming it from a second person.

Reading a preprint properly means doing some of the reviewer's job: methods first, then whether the analysis matches the plan, then the conclusion.

I would put the burden of proof on the interesting explanation, not the dull one.

Understood. Thank you for being specific about the limits of it.