If we must rank users, e.g. to decide whom to allow to post articles, let's have a system where users can rate each other directly (but anonymously).

A game I used to work on did something like this to gate content that was considered more advanced or more susceptible to balance problems. It caused an astonishing amount of drama between users and didn't seem to work very well as a gatekeeping mechanism.

I'm against it, pending details.