> There could be a submission fee that would be fully reimbursed if the submission is actually accepted for publication.

While well-intentioned, I think this is just gate-keeping. There are mountains of research that result in nothing interesting whatsoever (aside from learning about what doesn't work). And all of that is still valuable knowledge!

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ezst an hour ago | parent [-]

Sure, but now we can't even assume that such research is submitted in good faith anymore. There just seems to be no perfect solution.

Maybe something like a "hierarchy/DAG? of trusted-peers", where groups like universities certify the relevance and correctness of papers by attaching their name and a global reputation score to it. When it's found that the paper is "undesirable" and doesn't pass a subsequent review, their reputation score deteriorates (with the penalty propagating along the whole review chain), in such a way that:

- the overall review model is distributed, hence scalable (everybody may play the certification game and build a reputation score while doing so) - trusted/established institutions have an incentive to keep their global reputation score high and either put a very high level of scrutiny to the review, or delegate to very reputable peers - "bad actors" are immediately punished and universally recognized as such - "bad groups" (such as departments consistently spamming with low quality research) become clearly identified as such within the greater organisation (the university), which can encourage a mindset of quality above quantity - "good actors within a bad group" are not penalised either because they could circumvent their "bad group" on the global review market by having reputable institutions (or intermediaries) certify their good work

There are loopholes to consider, like a black market of reputation trading (I'll pay you generously to sacrifice a bit of your reputation to get this bad science published), but even that cannot pay off long-term in an open system where all transactions are visible.

Incidentally, I think this may be a rare case where a blockchain makes some sense?

	▲	jll29 21 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		You have some good ideas there, it's all about incentives and about public reputation. But it should also fair. I once caught a team at a small Indian branch of a very large three letter US corporation violating the "no double submission" rule of two conferences: they submitted the same paper to two conferences, both naturally landed in my reviewer inbox, for a topic I am one of the experts in. But all the other employees should not be penalized by the violations of 3 researchers.
	▲	gus_massa an hour ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		This idea looks very similar to journals! Each journal has a reputation, if they publish too much crap, the crap is not cited and the impact factors decrease. Also, they have an informal reputation, because impact index also has problems. Anyway, how will universities check the papers? Somone must read the preprints, like the current reviewers. Someone must check the incoming preprints, find reviewers and make the final decition, like the current editors. ...
	▲	amitav1 an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		How would this work for independent researchers? (no snark)