>What if you allowed every PC with more than, say, 100 game
>hours, to give a silent "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" to any
>other character. Potentially with a one-line comment
>attached.
>
>The *intent* would be for this to facilitate players either
>acknowledging (to the staff) characters who exhibit positive
>traits, or flagging characters who exhibit negative traits.

Who defines positive? Who defines negative? Who monitors that people are using it as they should?

>To prevent people trying to game the system (despite it having
>no automated game-play effect), you could maybe dole out the
>"votes" according to hours played. Every 50 hours played you
>get another vote, for example.

Meaning at 50 hours you get to put one vote on one character, and that's it? At that point, I'll make sure to save all my votes for the jerks.

>So if I see some level 11 guy who's just hanging around cabals
>waiting to loot heros, all day long, maybe that annoys me
>enough to spend one of my votes and give that guy a "thumbs
>down".

Or maybe someone kills me, so I give them a thumbs down. Or maybe I don't like their name because it's similar to something I read in some book.

>Or maybe someone almost kills me when I'm AFK but
>realizes it and stops.

Why would this even warrant a thumbs up?

>So, when I come back, maybe that
>impresses me enough to spend a vote in order to give them a
>thumbs up. Etc.

And the ultimate question...what exactly do you expect to come out of these player-run moderation? What do you expect the Immortals to do with it? Do you want to see it in PBFs? This turns into the "good player/bad player" ratings on X-Box Live where you get all your friends to give you a thumbs up, and then only ever give thumbs down to any douchebag you come across. Or it turns into LinkedIn where you get all your previous co-workers/managers to write you up glowing recommendations even though you're not THAT good.