Upset and uptight? Who? Certainly not me. Yeah, we're brainstorming, but you can't expect all of it to be in favour of the idea (indeed, it seems a number of people are opposed to it). I dislike such systems, see no benefit in them, and therefore am stressing that.
On user count: First, you need to put "success" in context. What is your goal? If you're out to make a "major skin site like DA" (and I assume that that's at least one of your goals, given the recent discussion on this), then user and download count become major factors, whether you wish them to be or not. And no, I frankly do not care about that punk with the cracked WB copy sucking on your netpipe, either. You've forgotten, though, that we do not live in a vacuum. That sucky user could (and likely does) have a friend, or even dozens of friends, that can make great skins, have a good way of commenting, or generally are able to contribute. By pissing off that one guy, you essentially run the risk of pissing them all off. These numbers can also become effectively large.
Plus, how do you deal with the largest mass downloaders? The ones without accounts (I haven't checked lately, but I assume you don't need an account to use this site's main function)? Cookies can be turned off, and things like sessions can also be circumvented. Even these bring about the "friend with talent" thing as well.
(yes, I know a pay system eliminates these (somewhat, anyway... I seriously doubt you're going to put a "give more money" sign on things like WindowBlinds.net), but until then, they're the largest chunk of bandwidth, and with or without them, those good friends are still an issue)
On living within the grant: A pay system entails option #2 in the short term, and #3 both short and long term.
On "control": I'm not bringing up any issues to say that you're some evil madman out to labotomise us. Indeed, if I did think that, you'd be getting much more stern responses. What I'm stressing is the point that these systems do not have any worthwhile benefits. Everything becomes quantitive, Brad. Even if you "seperate the wheat from the chaff" it does. Look at the way you and I write, for instance. We make very large posts filled with information. Would you find it fair to be considered on equal footing with a person that just posts things like "I don't like that idea, there's problems" and "That sounds good, I don't see anything wrong"? Now, don't misunderstand, there's nothing wrong with posts like that, and, depending upon circumstances, such a person's opinion should count equally, but there -is- a definitive quality difference, and it is recognised in the naturally occurring order. Think about it... ignoring the fact of my works, and your company, if you and I wrote like that, would we be who we are within the community? Of course not, and I feel that that's how it should be.
Another aspect of quantity has to deal with skin count. Remember the guy at skins that put out several skins of subpar quality and then used his skin count to judge others? I point system would only encourage such behaviour, the same as it encourages commenting for status. And yes, you have admins, but do you really want to increase their duties in such a way (and admins aren't infallible, even in number)?
Let the naturally occuring qualitive system pick its own heroes and villians, Brad. Attempting to force a heirarchy (in the sense of group relations, "admin/user" heirarchies conform to rules that do not apply here), even if not intentionally, can only lead to problems.
Brad, in all honesty, it sounds like you're attempting to drive a screw with a hammer. You want to increase comment count, honour "contributors", lower bandwidth, and make the site less expensive to run. None of these are wrong to attempt to solve, but you're attempting to find a single solution to fit all of them at once, and it's simply not going to work that way.
The first two, I believe, don't need a "system" to solve them... in fact any systematic methods are more likely to hinder what you desire than help. Try approaching the problem as "Brad, member of the group", instead of "Brad, The big cheese at WC". Stress to your fellows here that for comments to flourish they themselves must be a catalyst... if people see others comment, they're likely to themselves. A complimentary solution is to take things like windowblinds.net (which I'm sure generates a fair bit of the downloads on their own) and somehow add the comment system to them.
As for three and four, I don't currently see any option aside a pay system. It's the only thing that has the remotest chance of even approaching self sustinance given the circumstances. Frankly, I feel we should be discussing possible implimentations of such a system, rather than niggling over points.
(PS: I agree with cat that the amazon "yay or nay" comment system may be a good idea... a form of self-policing, basically.)
