Should experts in TCS charge money to read proofs that P != NP? It's well-known that there are tons of amateurs--myself included--who are interested in the P vs. NP problem.  There are also many amatuers--myself still included--who have made attempts to resolve the problem.

One problem that I think the TCS community suffers from is a relatively high interested-amateur-to-expert ratio; this leads to experts being inundated with proofs that P != NP, and I've read that they are frustrated and overwhelmed, quite understandably, by this situation.  Oded Goldreich has written on this issue, and indicated his own refusal to check proofs.

At the same time, speaking from the point of view of an amateur, I can assert that there are few things more frustrating for non-expert-level TCS enthusiasts of any level of ability than generating a proof that just seems right, but lacking both the ability to find the error in the proof yourself and the ability to talk to anyone who can spot errors in your proof.  Recently, R. J. Lipton wrote on the problem of amateurs who try to get taken seriously.

I have a proposal for resolving this problem, and my question is whether or not others think it reasonable, or if there are problems with it.

I think experts should charge a significant but reasonable sum of money (say, 200 - 300 USD) in exchange for agreeing to read proofs in detail and find specific errors in them.  This would accomplish three things:


Amateurs would have a clear way to get their proofs evaluated and taken seriously.
Experts would be compensated for their time and energy expended.
There would be a significantly high cost imposed on proof-checking that the number of proofs that amateurs submit would go down dramatically.


Again, my question is whether or not this is a reasonable proposal.  Obviously, I have no ability to cause experts to adopt what I suggest; however, I'm hoping that experts will read what I've written and decide that it's reasonable.
I have some "real-world experience" in this nascent industry (and no, I'm not talking about my $200,000 offer to Deolalikar :-) )

In January, a software developer emailed me that he had an attempted proof of P&ne;NP, and that while he was almost sure there was an error, he couldn't find it.  He asked if I knew any grad students who'd be willing to find the error for him in exchange for a few hundred dollars.

To give you some context: I get a proof of either P&ne;NP or P=NP in my inbox roughly once per month.  Many of these emails go to a long list of complexity theorists (Cook, Karp, Fortnow, Sipser...); they often include religious or metaphysical ruminations as well as dark hints about academic conspiracies.  (In one case, there were graphic death threats against me, which led to my contacting the police.)  Virtually none of them acknowledge any possibility that the proof might be wrong, or that the author might have misunderstood the question.  And when, back in grad school, I tried to correspond with the authors, I found all of them to be fervent believers in Churchill's maxim "never, never, never, never give up."

So the software developer's request really impressed me!  This was the first time I'd ever seen a P&ne;NP proof accompanied by this level of self-awareness---both about the imposition being made on people's time and (more importantly) about the likelihood of error.  As it happened, my PhD student Michael Forbes sent the author a beautiful, detailed report explaining the problems with his approach; the author thanked Michael and (I think! :-) ) paid up as promised.

So yes: for amateurs who want someone to examine their P vs. NP proofs (or similar work), I think paying a grad student a few hundred bucks is a great way to go.  (Note that grad students are a much better choice than professors: not only do they have more energy and enthusiasm for such things, they also need the money more.)  I wish more amateurs availed themselves of this option.