diff --git a/hepcrawl/spiders/arxiv_spider.py b/hepcrawl/spiders/arxiv_spider.py
index 1337b84f..28cd032d 100644
--- a/hepcrawl/spiders/arxiv_spider.py
+++ b/hepcrawl/spiders/arxiv_spider.py
@@ -24,6 +24,7 @@
     get_licenses,
     split_fullname,
     ParsedItem,
+    strict_kwargs,
 )
 
 RE_CONFERENCE = re.compile(
@@ -47,15 +48,22 @@ class ArxivSpider(OAIPMHSpider):
         Using OAI-PMH XML files::
 
             $ scrapy crawl arXiv \\
-                -a "oai_set=physics:hep-th" -a "from_date=2017-12-13"
+                -a "sets=physics:hep-th" -a "from_date=2017-12-13"
 
     """
     name = 'arXiv'
 
-    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
-        kwargs.setdefault('url', 'http://export.arxiv.org/oai2')
-        kwargs.setdefault('format', 'arXiv')
-        super(ArxivSpider, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
+    @strict_kwargs
+    def __init__(
+        self,
+        url='http://export.arxiv.org/oai2',
+        format='arXiv',
+        sets=None,
+        from_date=None,
+        until_date=None,
+        **kwargs
+    ):
+        super(ArxivSpider, self).__init__(**self._all_kwargs)
 
     def parse_record(self, selector):
         """Parse an arXiv XML exported file into a HEP record."""
diff --git a/hepcrawl/spiders/common/oaipmh_spider.py b/hepcrawl/spiders/common/oaipmh_spider.py
index fb69c741..38c0e7f0 100644
--- a/hepcrawl/spiders/common/oaipmh_spider.py
+++ b/hepcrawl/spiders/common/oaipmh_spider.py
@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@
 from scrapy.selector import Selector
 
 from .last_run_store import LastRunStoreSpider
+from ...utils import strict_kwargs
 
 
 LOGGER = logging.getLogger(__name__)
@@ -47,6 +48,7 @@ class OAIPMHSpider(LastRunStoreSpider):
     __metaclass__ = abc.ABCMeta
     name = 'OAI-PMH'
 
+    @strict_kwargs
     def __init__(
         self,
         url,
@@ -55,9 +57,9 @@ def __init__(
         alias=None,
         from_date=None,
         until_date=None,
-        *args, **kwargs
+        **kwargs
     ):
-        super(OAIPMHSpider, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
+        super(OAIPMHSpider, self).__init__(**self._all_kwargs)
         self.url = url
         self.format = format
         if isinstance(sets, string_types):
diff --git a/hepcrawl/utils.py b/hepcrawl/utils.py
index e504c4a6..ae6b8b35 100644
--- a/hepcrawl/utils.py
+++ b/hepcrawl/utils.py
@@ -9,10 +9,12 @@
 
 from __future__ import absolute_import, division, print_function
 
+import inspect
 import fnmatch
 import os
 import pprint
 import re
+from functools import wraps
 from operator import itemgetter
 from itertools import groupby
 from netrc import netrc
@@ -382,6 +384,62 @@ def get_licenses(
     return license
 
 
+def strict_kwargs(func):
+    """This decorator will disallow any keyword arguments that
+    do not begin with an underscore sign in the decorated method.
+    This is mainly to make errors while passing arguments to spiders
+    immediately visible. As we cannot remove kwargs from there altogether
+    (used by scrapyd), with this we can ensure that we are not passing unwanted
+    data by mistake.
+
+    Additionaly this will add all of the 'public' kwargs to an `_init_kwargs`
+    field in the object for easier passing and all of the arguments (including
+    non-overloaded ones) to `_all_kwargs`. (To make passing them forward
+    easier.)
+
+    Args:
+        func (function): a spider method
+
+    Returns:
+        function: method which will disallow any keyword arguments that
+            do not begin with an underscore sign.
+    """
+    argspec = inspect.getargspec(func)
+    defined_arguments = argspec.args[1:]
+    spider_fields = ['settings']
+
+    allowed_arguments = defined_arguments + spider_fields
+
+    if argspec.defaults:
+        defaults = dict(
+            zip(argspec.args[-len(argspec.defaults):], argspec.defaults)
+        )
+    else:
+        defaults = {}
+
+    @wraps(func)
+    def wrapper(self, *args, **kwargs):
+        disallowed_kwargs = [
+            key for key in kwargs
+            if not key.startswith('_') and key not in allowed_arguments
+        ]
+
+        if disallowed_kwargs:
+            raise TypeError(
+                'Only underscored kwargs allowed in {}. '
+                'Check {} for typos.'.format(func, ', '.join(disallowed_kwargs))
+            )
+
+        defaults.update(kwargs)
+        self._init_kwargs = {
+            k: v for k, v in defaults.items()
+            if not k.startswith('_') and k not in spider_fields
+        }
+        self._all_kwargs = defaults
+        return func(self, *args, **kwargs)
+    return wrapper
+
+
 class RecordFile(object):
     """Metadata of a file needed for a record.