Oh I see what you mean. You can see a system like that in action on Stack Overflow. I don't think it really does very much at all there either, under what seem like much more favourable conditions: harder to accumulate karma, lots and lots of permission thresholds, a community involved in far more moderation than here and piles of caps on all sorts of user actions.
On HN, this would also favour commenting participation over curating participation. It's not obvious this is a win over the way things work now.
On HN, this would also favour commenting participation over curating participation. It's not obvious this is a win over the way things work now.