[...]But from what I can tell, the forum moderators are wanting to grrow some sort of organic network of trust where they don't have to moderate it [...]
Not sure why no one brought up the fact that the whole thing's conceptually flawed. This "organic network" is grown from the seed which is the default trust, and can't be anything other than continuation of the breed. You plant apple seeds, you're going to get nothing but apple trees. True fact.