Wednesday 14 February 2018

publications - What should you consider before upload a revision to your arXiv paper when you spot an error?


I am in process of uploading a paper for arXiv. I have looked over the paper for several weeks now and it seems that there are no major issues, however, the paper is 24 pages long so I have accepted the possibility of having a few (non-trivial) typos and grammar mistakes here and there.


My question is, what should you consider before uploading a revision to your already uploaded paper, should you spot a mistake?


I am only asking because it seems that the people I have came across in my field rarely upload a revision, whether or not there are mistakes in their paper. One, for example, contained a glaring mistake in an important part of a proof, but the mistake is still there; I can see it now. The paper has been there for a year now, it has gone through a formal revision at a conference (where the mistake was corrected). But why not simply correct their arXiv copy?


Should I wait until more feedback is received before uploading a new revision? If so, how long? Is it okay to upload the revised version immediately or is there some arXiv mechanism that prevents me from doing so?


Is there a catch for uploading revisions?



Answer




Another reason is that the arXiv itself somewhat discourages overly frequent updates. For instance, after the 5th version(?), all future updates are no longer publicized in the mailings, so you might end up with the first few trivial corrections seeing more publicity than the future ones. I am myself no stranger to the "I'll update the arXiv once I've changed something significant" behavior, even if the preprint is years old and it is questionable whether any significant changes are to come.


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