Comment by wizzwizz4

> I don't think anything else is particularly concerning.

You can always generate slop that passes an anti-slop filter, if the anti-slop filter uses the same technology as the slop generator. Side-effects may include: making it exceptionally difficult for humans to distinguish between adversarial slop, and legitimate papers. See also: generative adversarial networks.

> Not all rejects, just those that submit an appeal.

So, drastically altering the culture around how the arXiv works. You have correctly observed that "appeals require some stakes" under your system, but the arXiv isn't designed that way – and for good reason. An appeal is either "I think you made a procedural error" or "the valid procedural reasons no longer apply": adding penalties for using the appeals system creates a chilling effect, skewing the metrics that people need to gain insight as to whether a problem exists.

Look at the article numbers. Year, month, and then a 5-digit code. It is not expected that more than 100k articles will be submitted in a given month, across all categories. If the arXiv ever needs a system that scales in the way yours does, with such sloppy tolerances, then it'll be so different to what it is today that it should probably have a different name.

If we were to add stakes, I think "revoke endorsement, requiring a new set of endorsers" would be sufficient. (arXiv endorsers already need to fend off cranks, so I don't think this would significantly impact them.) Exponential banhammer isn't the right tool for this kind of job, and I think we certainly shouldn't be getting the financial system involved (see the famous paper A Fine is a Price by Uri Gneezy and Aldo Rustichini: https://rady.ucsd.edu/_files/faculty-research/uri-gneezy/fin...).