I can see many potential problems arising if arxiv itself implements recommender systems or in some other way tries to be a gigantic journal or the primary social media for scientists or something alike. Tools that are strictly about making accessing the repository easier, like better word search, are fine.
I'd prefer if arxiv stays a repository, and the filtering and discussion and rating is left to other parties, for example, overlay journals such as Discrete Analysis (discreteanalysisjournal.com) [that ranked highly on HN when it launched]. Many separate journals can compete. The future of arxiv being as neutral as possible ground that disseminates papers freely on the internet (in standardized format and with maybe even the API you mentioned) and allows for a beneficial ecosystem of journals and other communities to develop, well, it sounds a more healthier future than arxiv trying to become the science community that encompasses everything from hosting of papers to discussion about them and judging their quality.
Assuming they adopt objective like that, I can easily imagine arxiv becoming a FB-of-science of sorts, and it might be very convenient ("I can just log in to Arxiv and everything will be there!") and maybe people would love it. (Everybody except lunatics and luddites and generally people who like to be inconvenient out of sheer malice to their fellow human beings are in FB, right? At least in my social circles. And that gives FB overwhelming ability to dictate terms for using FB, given that the ordinary user isn't their customer.) It could hand too much power to just one institution to define how the scientific community communicates.
Suppose they introduce comments. Sooner or later that would go the same way as any other internet community that has commenting and isn't 4chan, and they'd need actual comment moderation, maybe even ban people. If they are the major science-on-the-internet platform, that could be bit too much. I understand that currently they only do some basic sanity checks that submitted papers are not utter garbage?
I'd prefer if arxiv stays a repository, and the filtering and discussion and rating is left to other parties, for example, overlay journals such as Discrete Analysis (discreteanalysisjournal.com) [that ranked highly on HN when it launched]. Many separate journals can compete. The future of arxiv being as neutral as possible ground that disseminates papers freely on the internet (in standardized format and with maybe even the API you mentioned) and allows for a beneficial ecosystem of journals and other communities to develop, well, it sounds a more healthier future than arxiv trying to become the science community that encompasses everything from hosting of papers to discussion about them and judging their quality.
Assuming they adopt objective like that, I can easily imagine arxiv becoming a FB-of-science of sorts, and it might be very convenient ("I can just log in to Arxiv and everything will be there!") and maybe people would love it. (Everybody except lunatics and luddites and generally people who like to be inconvenient out of sheer malice to their fellow human beings are in FB, right? At least in my social circles. And that gives FB overwhelming ability to dictate terms for using FB, given that the ordinary user isn't their customer.) It could hand too much power to just one institution to define how the scientific community communicates.
Suppose they introduce comments. Sooner or later that would go the same way as any other internet community that has commenting and isn't 4chan, and they'd need actual comment moderation, maybe even ban people. If they are the major science-on-the-internet platform, that could be bit too much. I understand that currently they only do some basic sanity checks that submitted papers are not utter garbage?