I'm trying to keep track of the incentives being used to promote the ChemWeb.com chemistry preprint server (at: http://preprint.chemweb.com).
One of these is that each week's highest-ranked preprint, and the most-viewed preprint, are identified. How are the articles ranked? It appears that readers are providing the rankings. A drop-down menu is available, with the instruction: "Please select from the drop down menu the number of stars you think this preprint deserves". The menu provides a range from 1 to 5 stars. This week's highest-ranked article received 4 stars (and 202 views); while this week's most-viewed article recorded 552 views (and 3 stars). Highest ranked: http://preprint.chemweb.com/medichem/0009001 Most viewed: http://preprint.chemweb.com/envchem/0007001 As noted in earlier messages of mine about this particular preprint server: apparently, after publication in a journal, the preprints will be removed from the server and replaced by an abstract and a link to the journal article. (Then, the full text of the published article may not be freely available). There may be an incentive (especially for the authors of highly-rated preprints archived at this particular server), *not* to submit them for publication (unless they have already been self-archived elsewhere by the authors, prior to submission to a limited-access journal?). By the way, according to the ChemWeb.com News Bulletin, the number of submissions to this preprint server was 34 on Aug. 4, 2000, and 50 on Sept. 18, 2000. Jim Till Toronto, Canada
