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A comment on Nobody knows how to cite 4chan mathematicians who solved an interesting problem. Parent comment

Re:Nobody knows how to cite 4chan mathematicians who solved ... by presscast on Wednesday October 24, 2018 @12:10PM (#18293690)
>It's not that nobody knows how to cite it, it's that nobody wants to cite things from outside of academia, perhaps because it lowers their own perceived prestige.

What makes you say this? Citing anybody does little to increase your personal prestige. I think the issue has more to do with 4chan not being peer-reviewed, and the proof being so recent that few papers have yet been written.

On the contrary, citing a hot new thing is what academics do best.

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Re:Nobody knows how to cite 4chan mathematicians who solved ... by caconym_ on Wednesday October 24, 2018 @12:17PM (#18293766)
Somebody pointed out in the Twitter thread that academics often cite unreviewed papers on arXiv. If true (cannot confirm it myself, not in academia) then the peer-review-as-a-prerequisite-for-citation thing doesn't really hold water.
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Re:Nobody knows how to cite 4chan mathematicians who solved ... by ISL on Wednesday October 24, 2018 @12:55PM (#18294163)
Peer review is no prerequisite for citation.

The first paper I looked at for an example (at the top of today's "Recent" papers in PRD), cites three arXiv entries, out of 91 references. https://journals.aps.org/prd/references/10.1103/PhysRevD.98....

Successful peer review in an upstanding journal is a signal of relative reliability and importance, but it is not the arbiter of usefulness.

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Re:Nobody knows how to cite 4chan mathematicians who solved ... by sgc on Wednesday October 24, 2018 @08:47PM (#18297744)
Exactly. If I am sure of myself, I will cite anyone with information pertinent to my work. I am their peer and just reviewed it.
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Re:Nobody knows how to cite 4chan mathematicians who solved ... by laretluval on Wednesday October 24, 2018 @12:27PM (#18293867)
It depends on the field. In fast moving fields like machine learning it is common to cite unreviewed stuff on arXiv. In slower fields it is less common/accepted.
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