Preprints as Final Publication

I inadvertently started a twitter storm when I posted a few thoughts about bioRxiv (Figure 1). Submissions to bioRxiv have grown tremendously to >2000 per month, yet the percentage of papers not moving into publication in a peer-reviewed journal appears flat at ~30%. Assuming the analysis that appeared in bioRxiv is correct, 30% of the submissions do not proceed into the traditional peer-review process for eventual publication in a scholarly journal. At a rate of 2000 new submissions per month, that is 600 preprints that will persist as only preprints each month. Why are these preprints not proceeding…