Honestly, and I mean this with all due respect: You're being unreasonable. A study gets posted to Hacker News. You seem to expect every single person who wis

Honestly, and I mean this with all due respect: You're being unreasonable. A study gets posted to Hacker News. You seem to expect every single person who wishes to discuss the study to first become an expert in the subject matter ("To form a truly educated opinion on a scientific subject, you need to become familiar with current research in that field.") and deeply engage with the material at the level of, if not an expert, at least a dedicated amateur ("That's why I encouraged them to ask the Authors directly, if something is unclear or they are making assumptions that are simply not supported by the paper."). You're basing this all on a claim that HN comments have reduced in quality ("In my opinion the steady decline of quality in comments and submissions...") which is rooted in nothing more than your own personal opinion (which is a bit ironic for someone insisting that everyone do a deep and fundamental analysis of a topic before they weigh in on it) and, frankly, a fairly self-centered view of what dialog should look like here ("I'd just appreciate if people spent more time thinking about if they actually have something to say that has any sort of value for *me*"). Bluntly, this just looks like gatekeeping and elitism to me. Yes, I agree, folks should read the articles or studies before commenting. No question there. That's just basic due diligence. But this is a discussion forum first and foremost, and some of the very best interactions I've seen, here, have been between interested amateurs either asking questions or posing theories, and experts coming along and chiming in. Weirdly, you seem to recognize the value in that ("And yes, I think it's a good idea to challenge your assumptions by asking people with actual knowledge about the topic so you don't look like a complete fool on the Internet.") You apparently just don't want people using this forum to engage in those conversations, which is really very strange to me. If you don't want that kind of interaction, maybe you should continue to dial down your interactions with HN, because it seems to me this community is not what you want or need (which appears to be a group of only subject matter experts weighing in on any given topic).