Alternative metrics
In scholarship, currently the only reputable metric to assess the impact of a research paper is citations (or any other metric built around citations). The arXiv does not publish information about alternative metrics (alternative to citations), e.g. how many times a paper has been downloaded, tweeted, or blogged. One important, yet dubious, case against publishing these altmetrics is that they can be easily gamed. And if these metrics gain traction and become a reputable system to determine the standing of a researcher, then we are confronted with an easily-gamed system. We believe that these metrics provide important value in assessing the impact of research work, in addition, not as a replacement, to traditional metrics. Importantly, it has been shown that there is a very strong correlation between how many times a paper is downloaded and tweeted and how many times it is subsequently cited \cite{Haque_2009,Haque_2010,Shuai_2012}. The arXiv of the future will be transparent and it will publish information about alternative metrics that may determine the true impact of a research paper.