a) Maybe just have Sci-Hub and/or ArXiv links? If you assume your audience is mostly professors, then they can get past paywalls and you can just link to a pay

a) Maybe just have Sci-Hub and/or ArXiv links? If you assume your audience is mostly professors, then they can get past paywalls and you can just link to a paywalled source. b) Nested subtopics, good search, and mergeable threads so you can enforce one thread per paper? Do papers have ISBN numbers, or some equivalent? c) Most professors have verifiable .edu email addresses, but this is going to take human effort and you'd have to decide how much of the .edu world you want to allow in. d) Start with a very specific code of conduct, accept the fact some will be pissed off, have at least one full-time paid moderator? This will be tough, maybe the hardest part. e) Network effects will do this for you within networks (so each subfield of academia will eventually migrate to one site, but you might be able to attract e.g. most of math but biology could be on a competitor). I would worry about this least. I think this would work best apart from a paper-hosting site. The human costs and hosting costs will become expensive and it's easier to collect ad money if you stay legal. You might even able able to host this on a university network as ArXiv is, but this would make moderation more difficult because you'd be accused of bias towards that university. I think PHP-BB has all of the technical features you would actually need. The moderation would be the hardest part IMO.