It would be enough if a fraction of members voluntarily adopts Crocker's Rules and serve as free targets for vigorous debate. These users would have to be largely uninterested in conventional status, since low status would be integral to their role.

I'd be tempted to volunteer, if we decided to go that route, but I don't think I want to (or would be able to, without sacrificing in other areas) devote that kind of energy to the site.

However, we could take this idea to the extreme and award the lowest status to people with the best truth-seeking record and to the people who technically control the site; these people would be the "lowest troll(s)" and 'officially' heckle misguided and dishonest commenters who could not be discouraged by nicer means.

I used to be a member of a forum that basically used that method - one of the moderators had a well-deserved reputation for being very willing to get into fights and not at all concerned with politeness, and she'd generally jump into a given situation after at least one of the other mods had commented on it. It seemed to work very well, and was definitely entertaining and educational. (The forum is here if anyone's curious; I don't remember the name of the mod, and I'm actually not sure she's still there; it's been about 5 or 6 years since I was there.)