How about making upvoting power (e.g. votes per day (or hour, or whatever) accrue with tenure and/or karma? New users start with a low number of upvotes per period. At the start of each period, their count is reset to this maximum. (Unused votes do not roll over.)
The user's upvote count scales up per some formula, and beyond a certain point, it becomes uncapped.
I wouldn't grandfather anyone, either. KISS, and so that it also addresses the problem with the current population.
Potentional problems with this:
+ In line with the general policy of transparency that is practiced here, you may want to show users how many upvotes they have. But you may not want the load of additional profile page hits that might occur as people check their counts. Perhaps it would be a lower load to show that count in a fashion similar to how karma is shown in the banner next to the user name. However, I don't have a suggestion for a design that wouldn't make the banner look too busy.
+ A scarcity of upvotes might promote more low-value commenting. Perhaps a user's minimum time between comments needs to be defined and similarly throttled. (Simply cutting off comments when the count hits zero will merely result in people turning to comments before their count hits zero.
To take the glass half full view, perhaps such throttling would not eliminate participation, but would help people observe and become accustomed to the community's values before handing them the keys to the kingdom. And if they don't respect those values, it's going to hinder them from progressing to greater influence.
Including karma in the formula allows for high value contributors to progress more quickly. Tenure keeps a one hit wonder or clique of friends from gaining undue influence.
Similar: Perhaps make downvoting power -- as opposed to upvoting power -- proportional to age/karma? That would empower experienced (indoctrinated?) members to discourage the undesired content, without too heavily influencing the discussion.
The user's upvote count scales up per some formula, and beyond a certain point, it becomes uncapped.
I wouldn't grandfather anyone, either. KISS, and so that it also addresses the problem with the current population.
Potentional problems with this:
+ In line with the general policy of transparency that is practiced here, you may want to show users how many upvotes they have. But you may not want the load of additional profile page hits that might occur as people check their counts. Perhaps it would be a lower load to show that count in a fashion similar to how karma is shown in the banner next to the user name. However, I don't have a suggestion for a design that wouldn't make the banner look too busy.
+ A scarcity of upvotes might promote more low-value commenting. Perhaps a user's minimum time between comments needs to be defined and similarly throttled. (Simply cutting off comments when the count hits zero will merely result in people turning to comments before their count hits zero.
To take the glass half full view, perhaps such throttling would not eliminate participation, but would help people observe and become accustomed to the community's values before handing them the keys to the kingdom. And if they don't respect those values, it's going to hinder them from progressing to greater influence.
Including karma in the formula allows for high value contributors to progress more quickly. Tenure keeps a one hit wonder or clique of friends from gaining undue influence.