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There seems to be a notion that, when reviewing a paper, you are not supposed to use the knowledge acquired from that paper in your own research. In particular, you shouldn't build upon the paper's result, contact the authors to start a collaboration, etc. As spelled out in this answer, for instance: "once I finish reviewing a paper, I'm supposed to pretend that I don't know the paper exists".

I understand the justification for this when the work under review is not publicly available. But nowadays, in my community (theoretical CS), it is more and more common that authors will post their work as a publicly available preprint when submitting it to a conference. So the work that you review is publicly available -- in fact you may already know about it beforehand, or you can easily find this out.

In this case, the reviewer's "advance knowledge" of the paper is simply what anyone could get by reading the public preprint. Still, it seems that you are not supposed, for instance, to get in touch with the authors to start a collaboration with them on an improved result. So what is the remaining moral imperative for reviewers (if any) when reviewing papers that are publicly available? For instance, I would definitely cite the preprint if the work I'm doing happens to be connected to it. But I'm not sure, for instance, if it is a good idea to contact the authors to discuss possible improvements -- possibly without telling them explicitly that I know of their paper because I reviewed it.

(Note that this question is not about the importance of being impartial in your review, which is a different topic. For instance, it would still be an ethical violation to reject a paper because you are working on the same problem and want your own work to be accepted first.)

a3nm
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Your first paragraph is too strong. While it is improper to use private or early versions to "scoop" the original authors (plagiarism), it isn't improper to extend their work with proper citation. Immediately offering collaboration is possibly also improper and if done frequently could destroy trust in the review system.

Reviewers should maintain a higher standard, but if a reviewer is working on something and gets an overlapping paper to review their proper action is to refuse the review since they have a conflict of interest. But they don't need to stop their own work and may need to revise any current writings in light of the "in-process" paper.

But if authors publish their work, the ideas in it are free to be discussed, criticized, extended, etc. Just not "poached". Give due credit to avoid plagiarism.

Buffy
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    "it isn't improper to extend their work with proper citation": if the original submitted work is not publicly available, I think it would be unethical, for instance, to start working on an improvement, and release it with citation immediately when the submitted work is published. There is something similar discussed there: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/186571/what-are-the-ethics-of-reviewing-a-paper-spotting-issues-not-raising-them-in-t – a3nm Dec 06 '22 at 16:23
  • In general, but it's still tricky for me to understand what is the logic. For instance, immediately offering collaboration is improper, but I'm not sure why? How long should one wait? Which trust is being destroyed if authors get contacted by someone who read their paper, and that person happens to have done so because they were reviewing it? Still, thanks for the answer! – a3nm Dec 06 '22 at 16:25
  • On coauthorship: I would suggest contacting the editor of the journal as to when it might be appropriate to reach out to an author. The appropriate time, in my mind is (at least) after it has been fully accepted and your role as reviewer has been discharged. Only the editor will know this. The editor may have other ideas, and it strikes me as appropriate to defer to the most conservative interpretation of what is appropriate. – RegressForward Dec 06 '22 at 17:02
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    @RegressForward, actually, you probably already have a conflict of interest if you review the article intending to offer collaboration afterwards. It would be hard to suggest you had a neutral attitude. No editor should accept such a review. – Buffy Dec 06 '22 at 17:04
  • I don't disagree - all the more reason the editor would like to know a reviewer's thoughts. I see above you mention offering collaboration is "possibly improper", I encourage anyone considering anything "possibly improper" to confirm with their editor who has their journal reputation on the line. – RegressForward Dec 06 '22 at 18:37
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    @A3nm I think one reason is to avoid a situation when the reviewer requests collaboration, gets denied, and then rejects the paper for ill reasons. – Yanko Dec 07 '22 at 01:56
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    @Yanko: Another reason is to avoid a situation where the reviewer requests collaboration, gets accepted, and then recommends acceptance of the paper for ill reasons. – Alexander Woo Dec 07 '22 at 03:12
  • @Buffy, agreed, if you already know before accepting that you would want to contact the authors, it is probably a good idea to decline the review. – a3nm Dec 07 '22 at 14:21