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This is a reasonable viewpoint/opinion paper [
I do think the paper should be transferred to JMIR Infodemiology. As to the authors’ statement that “the obsessive pursuit of prestige must be drastically limited as they undermine the credibility of science,” I agree, and that also extends to obsession with the impact factor, so I hope the author follows his own advice and agrees to a transfer.
It may be worth citing [
Preprint servers do screen submissions, and there are different levels of screening, varying by preprint server. For example, MedRxiv implemented more strict criteria on COVID-19 compared with Zenodo, etc.
“Level of evidence” is a well-known phrase and is typically thought of in terms of study type rather than dissemination modality (ie, “systematic review” is better than “RCT,” which is better than “observational studies,” etc). If you come up with a new hierarchy—that is not directly speaking to the study type—I would suggest you come up with a new phrase or label for the type of hierarchy you are suggesting.
None declared.