Is there a reason arxiv doesn't directly manage what would be an analog to paper reputation?
My impression is that journal selection is doing some work of signaling how awesome scientists think a particular paper is, either actually or aspirationally, and so is capturing some sense of group regard. It seems like just keeping track of views, downloads, and "likes" on arxiv might serve much the same function although would clearly require a lot of work to get right to be credible.
Overlay journals and the reputation graph as the result of citations. The more reproducible your work is, the higher the reputation should be. Part of getting an undergraduate or masters degree should be in reproducing research.
More easily gamed, I'd think. Also, if you remove the curators (journals), then people looking for research in the first place (who are driving the ones arxiv stats) won't know where to look first.
My impression is that journal selection is doing some work of signaling how awesome scientists think a particular paper is, either actually or aspirationally, and so is capturing some sense of group regard. It seems like just keeping track of views, downloads, and "likes" on arxiv might serve much the same function although would clearly require a lot of work to get right to be credible.