Submission on hold on arxiv

Question

I have recently submitted a paper to arXiv, but the arXiv moderators put my paper in status "on hold", because they have to make a decision on the right classification for the paper.

To those who have experienced a similar situation, how long did it take before they made a decision and published the paper on the arXiv? I just want to have an idea of how long I will have to wait.

Answer 1

I had the same experience with arxiv and it took only 1-2 days after they change my paper track. However, they mentioned it may take up to several days. The arxiv helps says

On Hold

Your submission was identified by arXiv administrators or moderators as needing further attention.

Submissions may be put on hold for a variety of reasons, ranging from questions about proper classification, pending moderator approval, presentation issues, copyrighted PDF, etc., to editorial concerns. Most of these do not require any further input from the submitter and will be dealt with in due course. arXiv urges submitters to be patient. Due to the large volume of submissions, it may take several days before a resolution is reached.

Note that oversize submissions are automatically put on hold, and this is one particular circumstance in which submitters should follow up with arXiv administrators.

Submissions in this status will not expire. Authors must not create a new submission with the same content when a pending submission is on hold.

Please be sure to include the submission identifier of the form submit/NNNNNNN when contacting arXiv administrators.

wait for few more days and send them an email. They are quick in response.

Answer 2

Sending an email to ask when to expect publication will trigger a standard response from arxiv.org that looks like this:

Your submission is currently on hold pending a decision by our volunteer moderators. The "hold" status merely indicates that one or more of the moderators need additional time to consider your article.

Due to the volume of mail arXiv receives, we are not able to provide regular status updates. Upon resolution, your submission will be deposited in arXiv, or we will contact you with further information.

Seems that long waiting times can occur particularly when volunteer moderators are in holidays. I received this answer several times during summer while my submission had "on hold" status for more than two weeks...