2009/7/17 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>om>:
Not really. For the kind of things you get on arXiv
"reliable" is
usually taken to mean "peer-reviewed", so you would cite the journal
the paper was published in. You might link to the arXiv version for
convenience, but you would be citing the journal, not arXiv.
"For convenience" is a good way of putting it. Some arXiv-published
work is of minor note (e.g. Garrett Lisi's e8 Theory of Everything was
in the news after its release), but being in arXiv is not in itself
anything special whatsoever. It's all but self-published.
(Which is why viXra is such thrilling news. It's like Hell wasn't deep
enough, so they're digging tenth and eleventh circles below the
basement.)
- d.