Citing a preprint in a maintained document: our rule and its reasoning — does this still hold?

The question in the title: Citing a preprint in a maintained document: our rule and its reasoning — does this still hold? I will give what I have already checked below so nobody repeats it.

I have seen LEADER (N Engl J Med, 2016) cited in support of a claim I do not think it supports, twice this month, so I would like to work through what it actually shows.

My reading is that the trial is sound for its own question and is being stretched to answer a different one. I might be wrong about that, which is why this is a topic rather than a correction.

What I would like from this discussion: someone who disagrees with me to say why, with the section of the paper they are relying on.

Server repositories: medRxiv for medicine, bioRxiv for biology. Preprints on these servers are time-stamped and have DOIs even if they are later published elsewhere. Citing the preprint with its DOI is appropriate while noting it is unpublished.

On post #10 — agreed on the reasoning, with one qualification.

Server repositories: medRxiv for medicine, bioRxiv for biology. Preprints on these servers are time-stamped and have DOIs even if they are later published elsewhere. Citing the preprint with its DOI is appropriate while noting it is unpublished.

This follows post #30 rather than contradicting it.

Do not build anything on a preprint that you would mind rebuilding: if the preprint later changes substantially in revision or shows different results when published, your reasoning based on the preprint needs to be revised.

How to cite a preprint: author last name, first initial, et al. Title. Server name [preprint]. Posted date. Doi. Include the server name and note that it is a preprint.

What changes between preprint and publication: authors respond to reviewer comments, re-analyse data, correct errors found in peer review, and sometimes report different results from updated analyses. The published version is not the same as the preprint.

How to cite a preprint: author last name, first initial, et al. Title. Server name [preprint]. Posted date. Doi. Include the server name and note that it is a preprint.

Worth separating two things that post #104 runs together.

Unrefereed work is not worthless. A great deal of it survives review substantially unchanged. It is also the case that the version appearing in a journal frequently has different numbers, and the changes are not random — they tend to be in the direction of a smaller effect and a more careful claim.