It absolutely can work. As I have said 1000 times before ratings and flags need to be left to observable instances of theft, violation of contractual agreement, or violation of applicable laws. Theymos had an opportunity to make a break with the old system with the introduction of flags by implementing this standard.

Instead he intentionally chose to leave in arbitrary language which left loop holes so big you could drive a bus through them to abuse the system. I warned him this would result in failure of his new system, and here we are. He seems to maintain this idealistic delusion that large groups of human beings will self regulate outside of a very specific regulatory structure, and is using us all for his little social experiment. It isn't fair to the user base, and it causes the forum to hemorrhage good people that never return.