&gt; If a paper deserves a serious comment, I think the proper format for that is another paper.<p>That&#x27;s the thing, though - speaking as a former academic, the reaction when you see a paper that needs serious commenting is mostly &quot;I&#x27;ll just ignore this paper, since it has these issues&quot;, and you continue working on your own stuff - which again is because of the need for citations. If comments had larger effects on your career, they would be worthwhile making. I would guess the effect would be less papers and more &#x27;collaborative science&#x27; where you start from a paper and either suggest improvements or improve it &#x2F; replicate it yourself. I don&#x27;t see the current proliferation of papers to be a good thing.<p>As for the worry that there will be too many &#x27;laymen&#x27; doing the commenting, there could (as suggested elsewhere) be a verification process - i.e. there could be a &#x27;Verified Ph.D.&#x27; (or some other measure of merit) comment section in addition to the &#x27;layman&#x27; section.<p>There could also be a &#x27;replication&#x27; section, where replication efforts will be rewarded - possibly by giving the replications some fraction of the paper&#x27;s total &#x27;reputation&#x27;.<p>In short: If comments are made to really count for scientists, I think there will be a more healthy scientific process going on. Viewing a paper as an evolving thing is IMO more in line with how science does work anyway - a result <i>should</i> be replicated before it&#x27;s accepted, which is not the case now.