Proprietary preprint archives

From Eureka

Proprietary preprint archives were launched by a number of publishers as an attempt to combat the rising influence of the arXiv. Examples included ChemWeb and The Mathematics Preprint Server, run by Elsevier. The latter was especially devious, because at the time many mathematicians informally called the arXiv "the mathematics preprint server".

However, the Mathematics Preprint Server didn't fool many people, so many of the papers they got were nonsense, like a supposed proof of Goldbach's conjecture, and a claim that the rotation of a galactic supercluster is due to a "topological defect" in spacetime. Eventually Elsevier gave up and stopped accepting new papers on their preprint server. Now it's a shadow of its former self^[1]. On the other hand, ChemWeb continues to maintain a presence^[2], run by ChemIndustry.com.

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