Same in cryptography, where the research community manages our own preprint archive (http://eprint.iacr.org/ http://eprint.iacr.org/). My experience has been t

Same in cryptography, where the research community manages our own preprint archive (http://eprint.iacr.org/ http://eprint.iacr.org/). My experience has been that preprint archives are often used to "mark territory" i.e. get credit for an idea quickly so that it can be discussed more openly.