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> an increase in thin papers of narrow scope, as well as ‘salami’ papers, where a single work is broken up and submitted as a set of smaller papers. There is also a marked increase in dense, AI-written papers. AI tools are making it easy for authors to flood arXiv [and others with] low-value papers.

arXiv@arxiv.bsky.social

arXiv has updated our policy on rate limiting for all submitters. This update was made to fairly distribute moderator time & support the arXiv community of staff, volunteers, readers & authors. Please read our announcement to learn more: https://blog.arxiv.org/2026/10/01/updated-rate-limit-policy/

2/10/26, 6:09 am62 reposts218 likes

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ

@olivia.science

A DDoS attack of terrible "work" on preprint servers... > arXiv submission rates have steadily increased since our founding in 1991. In September, arXiv received 40,363 submissions in a single month – a new record.

blog.arxiv.orgFair Moderation, Equitable Access, and AI: arXiv’s Updated Rate Limit PolicyarXiv, and the scientific community at large, are facing a watershed moment. Scholarly publishing is currently changing at a rapid pace, and we are seeing a…

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ

@olivia.science

Some interesting material analysis here of the model @arxiv.bsky.social uses (blog.arxiv.org/2026/09/23/a...) is possible versus a more generic and publicly funded repository like CERN's zenodo.org, which is also under heavy load by the same forces of course: blog.zenodo.org/2026/09/15/2...

blog.zenodo.orgZenodo performance: an update on the current situationZenodo is a free and open digital archive built by CERN and OpenAIRE, enabling researchers to share and preserve research output in any size, format and from all fields of research.

Tommy Löfstedt

@tommylofstedt.bsky.social

I’m probably naive about how people operate in what is of course a very competitive landscape, but I don’t see who or how one actually benefits from having a bunch of ”salami” or ”AI” arXiv papers in their CV. Anyone got any good explanations?

Barrett Davis

@barrettdavis.bsky.social

I’ve heard it said about hiring committees that while not everyone can read, everyone can count. If no. published papers is a filtering metric, this is how some cheat it.

Quark Bee

@quarkbee.bsky.social

neonazis, patriarchal power structures in academic institutions, and Robert Maxwell's rancid ghost, that's who benefits

Zen Faulkes

@doctorzen.net

It’s unlikely that the pre-prints are an end in itself. Pre-prints are part of the normal publication process in many fields. These pre-prints are probably seen by the authors as steppingstones to what they hope will become publications. There are many institutions that count publications.

Thiago

@csthiago.bsky.social

They can inflate their citation count if those papers have a lot of self-citation. Also, a lot of outdated places use raw metrics, such as the number of papers, etc. But I would think the first reason is more impactful (difficult to assess if someone committed)

Toaster

@toaster.codes

Argh. Naively, I’d assumed H-indexes excluded self-citation but of course I was wrong.

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ

@olivia.science

It's a common rigging method at the journal level too wherein journals can (and some prestigious ones do) coerce authors into citing papers published by the same journal to boost citation rankings.

Thiago

@csthiago.bsky.social

I remember one group in vaccine epi. Every single paper was close to 60% (or more) self-citation. (A lot of salami slicing; they would change one thing only and do a new paper). Wayyy before the LLM slop era

Delicious Terrine 🍉

@langoustine.bsky.social

Academia is run by a bunch of vain, egotistical idiots who love bragging about this kind of shit. Publish or perish, so you should publish as much as possible, ethics and science be damned