On Mon, Dec 11, 2000 at 02:45:16AM -0500, Jim Till wrote: > However, when I assessed the publication records of the authors > of preprints posted at the ClinMed NetPrints website, almost all > appeared to have some track record of publication in PubMed- > listed journals.
This is a very important point. Of course it's not fair to judge an individual article on the basis of who wrote it. But if most of the authors in an archive have a track record of peer-reviewed work, then presumably they care about their reputations enough to maintain standards. Unfortunately the clindmed archive is still too small. I can suggest two tactics that we have used to get the math arXiv moving: o You can compile a roster of supporters who pledge to contribute a given number of preprints. This is what I did in combinatorics and geometric topology, two of my own areas. As the roster grew it became more and more persuasive. Later I recirculated it to get people to fulfill their pledges. o You can forge agreements to host institutional preprints series, conference proceedings, and journals. Your clients can then either encourage authors to contribute or contribute themselves by proxy. Agreements where the client systematically contributes everything, or makes sure that the authors do so, are particularly valuable. -- /\ Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis) / \ \ / Visit the Math ArXiv Front at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/ \/ * All the math that's fit to e-print *
