Perhaps it would make sense to do background checks on all the voters once the poll gets enough traction? If votes were placed with twinks, I guess it should become quite obvious when looking at the posting history.
That would place a heavy burden on the shoulders of staff.
Which is kind of the opposite of the "semi-automated" system I propose.
I wouldn't ignore newbie votes completely though, I feel they should have a voice as well, and that it could benefit everyone. We've seen a large influx of new users in the past couple of years because of mainstream media's interest in Bitcoin. Newbs are the loudest complainers when it comes to getting merit. They are often ostracized because of their bad English & shitposting (and in 99,9% of cases, rightly so). Let them do all the complaining & shitposting in their local boards (hell, I would even suggest restricting some members' access stricly to their local boards) and let us enjoy cleaner and more comprehensible English sections of the forum!
I can agree on that. Which is why I personally would vote for certain local boards, even if they're not in my language.
In fact, I guess my proposed solution might lead to a situation where people who want a specific language forum will actively "lobby" the established users of this forum.
That
might even become annoying, now that I think about it.
Sure, "merit sources" could upvote certain boards, but I don't think that'd be too bad, considering who they are.
Merit sources upvoting certain boards is one angle. Call me paranoid, but whoever would post the suggestion in the thread could simply buy merit and manipulate the vote this way.
Buying merit just to upvote a local board?
Well, if it's worth that much for someone, I guess he'll have a good reason to have that board, so why not let him have it?