Why preprint servers are increasing moderation — and what that means for researchers

A level of peer review can happen for manuscripts submitted to preprint servers. Credit: Wasan Tita/iStock via Getty The COVID‑19 pandemic had a major effect on scholarly communication, accelerating data sharing, peer review and the publication of preprints. Although preprints have been around for decades, the pandemic underscored the part they play in the rapid, free and open dissemination of scientific knowledge. The proliferation of artificial-intelligence-generated manuscripts and junk science in the past few years has forced preprints to adapt once again. Some repositories seem to be tightening their quality-control and moderation procedures in an effort to protect against these threats. Preprint moderators have to strike “a really, really difficult balance” between rapidly sharing new research and protecting the community from flawed or harmful material, says Natascha Chtena, who studies scholarly communication and open science at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. Chtena and Alice Fleerackers, a social scientist at the University of Amsterdam, have been looking into moderation practices at preprint servers. They’ve found that, under specific circumstances, moderators make judgements about the quality of submissions, often using criteria similar to those applied by academic journals. Although these efforts are well intentioned, legitimate submissions can get caught in the crossfire, says Fleerackers. …