Evidence · Preprints

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Evidence › Preprints preprint risk of bias needs a source

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j.mwangiTL4 Moderator28 Nov 2025#1

Community wiki post. Any member at trust level 3 or above can edit this post; every edit is recorded. Last edited by hana.sato on 5 Jul 2026.

23 Dec 2025 — j.mwangi: Clarified the distinction that was causing repeat questions below.
10 Dec 2025 — mira.patel: Added the worked example and a unit label to the table header.
5 Jul 2026 — hana.sato: Replaced an unsourced figure with the published one and cited it.

Editors: j.mwangi, mira.patel, hana.sato

Staff post. Actions described here are recorded in the public moderation log and may be challenged in Meta.

Unrefereed work, clearly labelled as such, with the usual caveats stated once and taken seriously.

This post is a community wiki: any member at trust level 3 or above can edit it, and every edit is recorded with its author and a note. If the scope described here has drifted from what actually gets posted, edit it rather than starting a topic about it.

What belongs here

Questions specific to preprints, with the units and the context stated.
Reports and datasets, with the collection method stated.
Disagreement about the substance, conducted in public.

What belongs elsewhere

Anything urgent belongs in Safety, immediately, and not here.
Anything about how this site works belongs in Meta.
Requests for a maintained page belong in Wiki requests.

Before posting, it is worth checking the documentation commons and this category's tag pages. A great deal of what gets asked here has a maintained answer with a review date on it, which is more reliable than a two-year-old reply.

0 likes 8mo

dr_okonkwoTL4 Moderator2 Jan 2026#2

Staff post. Actions described here are recorded in the public moderation log and may be challenged in Meta.

Moderation notes for this category, so that nothing about how it is run is a surprise.

Topics get moved into and out of here regularly. A move is not a judgement — the category tree is not obvious from outside and putting a question in the wrong place is expected. When I move something I say so in the topic and the action appears in the public log with the guideline cited.

The two guidelines that come up most often in this category are R2, on supplying a source when asked, and R7, on category placement. Neither is used punitively.

25 likes 7mo

NHuddlestonTL1Member28 Jan 2026#3

As a member rather than staff: the most useful thing I did when I started reading this category was to work through the tag pages rather than the topic list. The topic list shows you what is recent. The tags show you what is settled.

12 likes 6mo

i.beaulieuTL2 Moderator20 Feb 2026#4

Suggestion for the wiki post above: it would be worth linking the two or three most-referenced topics in this category directly, since new members reliably ask for exactly those. Happy to make the edit myself if nobody objects, with a revision note.

4 likes 5mo

s.perrinTL2 Moderator13 Mar 2026#5

dr_okonkwo, post #2: Moderation notes for this category, so that nothing about how it is run is a surprise. Topics get moved into and out of here regularly. A move is not a judgement — the category tree is not obvious from outside and putting a question in the wrong place is expected. When I move something I say so in the topic and the action appears in the… Go to post

Preprints for speed: some important preliminary findings are posted as preprints to disseminate quickly. That speed is useful but comes at the cost of not yet having survived peer review. The trade-off is real.

0 likes in reply to #2 5mo

glossary_checkTL22 Apr 2026#6

Collapsed as off-topic by two members at trust level 3 or above

Thank you for the correction. I have edited my earlier post with a note rather than silently, so the thread still makes sense to read. The error was mine and it was the kind that comes from remembering a figure instead of looking it up.

l.krastevTL2 Moderator21 Apr 2026#7

Worth separating two things that post #3 runs together.

Server repositories: medRxiv for medicine, bioRxiv for biology. Preprints on these servers are time-stamped and have DOIs even if they are later published elsewhere. Citing the preprint with its DOI is appropriate while noting it is unpublished.

17 likes 3mo

glossary_deskTL3Regular10 May 2026#8

post #7 is right about the mechanism and I think understates the practical bit.

What changes between preprint and publication: authors respond to reviewer comments, re-analyse data, correct errors found in peer review, and sometimes report different results from updated analyses. The published version is not the same as the preprint.

7 likes 3mo

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