Maybe you could apply the web of trust concept? Tag submissions with a key, and then let people only see links that from keys they’ve trusted, or from keys that have been trusted by (some number of) keys that they’ve trusted.
Yeah I was considering that idea too, like a trusted circle feature. But haven't done any user management yet as this is purely an experiment. Agree automation can only go so far, but at least that can catch the low hanging fruit.
