It doesn't seem humanly possible to produce >2 "high SNR" papers per month. If you have a larger batch of related papers, it's easy to spread submissions over multiple months. You should probably be doing that anyway, because comments on one paper may affect the others.
> It doesn't seem humanly possible to produce >2 "high SNR" papers per month.
The situation right now is pretty crazy, for example this established TCS professor [1] has at least 4 arXiv submissions co-authored by him in September [2]. This includes the recent breakthrough on the matroid secretary problem, which has a pretty interesting AI story of its own, if you haven't seen it yet [3].
Of course prolific professors can work around this by working with younger researchers who upload the work, but this just makes the rate limit a solo author bottleneck, which feels a bit weird.
[3]: Concurrent Discovery Disclosure: The proof of the main result in this manuscript was obtained in a conversation with ChatGPT-6 Astra on Tuesday, September 15, 2026 at 1:02 AM PDT. We then prepared this manuscript for public release, with the intent of uploading it on the morning of Thursday, September 17, 2026. In the early morning hours of September 17, while finalizing the submission, we discovered the manuscript of Abdi, Banihashem, Hajiaghayi, and Mittal, uploaded on September 16, 2026, which contains the same result via an essentially identical approach. We are sharing our manuscript nonetheless in case our exposition is of independent utility to the community, and we hope this experience stimulates broader discussion about concurrent discovery in the AI era. (From <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.20797" rel="nofollow">https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.20797 .)
I don't see what we lose if lead authors are forced to submit work themselves instead of going through the PI's account.
But yes, it'd be nice if arxiv also rate-limited co-author submissions with some higher number to discourage the most flagrant PI co-authorship abuses.
The situation is pretty crazy, but it just means the bar for publishable results will go up. Theoretical computer science is a field built around conferences. The number of papers that can be published in reputable conferences ultimately depends on the size of the community and the willingness and ability of its members to attend those conferences.
Insane. No. Mathematicians will not produce >2 "high SNR" papers per month as their rate calculated over any reasonable time scale; but their maximum per month? Very much the case that they will complete linked papers/dependencies/series of work/etc, spend a month in editing across multiple nearly-complete submissions, and so on.
And in mathematics, at least, priority on results is determined by the first time it appears out in the wild; for most, this is the arXiv.
Nobody is going to accept waiting a month on something that they fear may be scooped, costing them years of work and thought.
This affectively makes the arXiv obsolete for much of the purpose it has heretofore been put to.
Something really rubs me the wrong way about automatically limiting people in science based on a number attached to their name. Seems like a very slippery slope!
Do you have a concrete example of a high SNR researcher who will be limited by this policy? Aka one who is submitting more than two high quality papers per month?
move6729 · · focus · HN ↗
AlotOfReading · · focus · HN ↗
NotOscarWilde · · focus · HN ↗
The situation right now is pretty crazy, for example this established TCS professor [1] has at least 4 arXiv submissions co-authored by him in September [2]. This includes the recent breakthrough on the matroid secretary problem, which has a pretty interesting AI story of its own, if you haven't seen it yet [3].
Of course prolific professors can work around this by working with younger researchers who upload the work, but this just makes the rate limit a solo author bottleneck, which feels a bit weird.
[1]: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Hajiaghayi" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Hajiaghayi
[2]: <a href="https://arxiv.org/search/cs?query=Hajiaghayi&searchtype=author&abstracts=show&order=-announced_date_first&size=50" rel="nofollow">https://arxiv.org/search/cs?query=Hajiaghayi&searchtype=auth...
[3]: Concurrent Discovery Disclosure: The proof of the main result in this manuscript was obtained in a conversation with ChatGPT-6 Astra on Tuesday, September 15, 2026 at 1:02 AM PDT. We then prepared this manuscript for public release, with the intent of uploading it on the morning of Thursday, September 17, 2026. In the early morning hours of September 17, while finalizing the submission, we discovered the manuscript of Abdi, Banihashem, Hajiaghayi, and Mittal, uploaded on September 16, 2026, which contains the same result via an essentially identical approach. We are sharing our manuscript nonetheless in case our exposition is of independent utility to the community, and we hope this experience stimulates broader discussion about concurrent discovery in the AI era. (From <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.20797" rel="nofollow">https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.20797 .)
AlotOfReading · · focus · HN ↗
But yes, it'd be nice if arxiv also rate-limited co-author submissions with some higher number to discourage the most flagrant PI co-authorship abuses.
jltsiren · · focus · HN ↗
Gregaros · · focus · HN ↗
And in mathematics, at least, priority on results is determined by the first time it appears out in the wild; for most, this is the arXiv.
Nobody is going to accept waiting a month on something that they fear may be scooped, costing them years of work and thought.
This affectively makes the arXiv obsolete for much of the purpose it has heretofore been put to.
AlotOfReading · · focus · HN ↗
miki123211 · · focus · HN ↗
Whereas I would say "Have they put this on Arxiv yet?", mathematicians would say "Have they put this on the Arxiv yet?".
toomuchtodo · · focus · HN ↗
sarjann · · focus · HN ↗
black_knight · · focus · HN ↗
hingler36 · · focus · HN ↗
anvuong · · focus · HN ↗