As you may be aware, a large number of previously-public preprints posted on PsyArXiv have become inaccessible in the past 24 hours. We know this is disruptive to many people and organizations who rely on PsyArXiv preprints, and that it is frustrating to have little information about what is happening. Please read on for further information on what happened and when you can expect the service to resume operating normally.
What happened?
As you may be aware, PsyArXiv has been receiving an influx of low-quality submissions, and the rate of these submissions has increased substantially in the last few weeks. This influx has made it necessary to transition PsyArXiv from a post-moderation system (where submitted preprints were immediately publicly available, but still marked as “pending” until moderation) to a pre-moderation system (where preprints are not available until after moderation).
The publication of inappropriate submissions in PsyArXiv is problematic for a few reasons. First, once submissions are published, they receive a DOI, which means PsyArXiv and the related page remains accessible permanently. This is true even if the submission is subsequently withdrawn. Although withdrawn files are removed, a DOI will already have been minted (and paid for), and hosting the related webpage will continue to consume resources. When this was happening only occasionally, post-moderation was a reasonable alternative; now that the rate of problematic submissions has increased, it is no longer viable. Second, these submissions can take a while to be moderated, and while they stay up, they degrade the reputation of PsyArXiv. The move to pre-moderation has successfully contained these issues, and we’re beginning to see a decline in these types of submissions.
A consequence of the move to pre-moderation is that any existing but unmoderated submissions, which were previously publicly available, are now inaccessible to the public. Normally this would not be an issue, as moderation is supposed to take about 24-72 hours. However, because PsyArXiv was using post-moderation, not enough emphasis was placed in making moderation as speedy as would be required in a pre-moderation system. PsyArXiv (and moderation in particular) is run entirely by volunteers, and correctly allocating what few resources we have is sometimes a gamble. In this case, we were not able to anticipate that we would need to move to pre-moderation fast enough, and were not able to clear the significant backlog of unmoderated submissions before making this change, for which we apologize.
What happens next?
The PsyArXiv Team is working around the clock to get through the moderation backlog and return PsyArXiv to its full functionality. We are currently scaling up our moderation team to be able to clear the existing backlog as quickly as possible. Unmoderated preprints are being handled in a semi-random order by volunteers, and we expect the current backlog to be cleared in 3-4 weeks. Unfortunately, this means that your previously-public preprint may become accessible again tomorrow, or in 3-4 weeks, but most likely, at some point in between.
We understand how frustrating that can be – many people, if not everyone, in the PsyArXiv team have also had many of their preprints become inaccessible. We ask for your patience, and please know we all care deeply about keeping PsyArXiv functioning at its best.
If you would like to sign up to become a PsyArXiv moderator, now or in the future, here is the link for that.
If there is a specific preprint that you urgently need to be made available for a specific reason, please email psyarxiv@improvingpsych.org with the subject line “Urgent Moderation Request” and include the link, DOI, or the OSF identifier to your preprint (e.g., ab3de_v1) and a brief explanation for your request. Please remember that moderating specific preprints takes longer than just moving through the moderation queue, so we request that you only do this if it’s really necessary.
Thank you again for your patience,
-The PsyArXiv Team