Preprint servers and what screening they do — the long version

On the subject in the title: Preprint servers and what screening they do — the long version 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.

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

Nothing above should be read as advice about what anyone else should do.

Post #6 is the version of this I will quote in future. One addition.

Say it is a preprint in the first line rather than the last. Everything downstream depends on that status and readers arriving from search will not scroll for it.

Where I part company with post #4, and it is a narrow parting.

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.

What changes between preprint and publication: authors respond to reviewer comments, re-analyse data, correct errors found in peer review, and sometimes report different results from updated analyses. The published version is not the same as the preprint.

Not the whole picture, but the part of it I can speak to.