Yep, I'm aware of Arxiv. What I should have said is that while it's certainly possible for people to self-publish, it's not the norm (as far as I can tell) for

Yep, I'm aware of Arxiv. What I should have said is that while it's certainly possible for people to self-publish, it's not the norm (as far as I can tell) for most serious scientific efforts. Whereas in the software world, it's not at all surprising when even huge companies like Microsoft and Google release software using GitHub. I don't see nonsense as a significant problem. There are plenty of throwaway projects on GitHub that receive no attention, but we have methods of curation (i.e. creator reputation, reviews, etc.) for surfacing the things that do deserve consideration. These methods may be frequently imperfect and inefficient, but if they work for code, retail products, etc., I don't see why they can't work for scientific papers.