jimberg - what you are describing will be supported in the future version of vBulletin 3.0, which is now in development and alpha testing. It has a system built into it called, "Karma" ratings. It allows members to "rate" other members on the forums. In essence, I would guess that it is kind of like how you can rate sellers on eBay or even rate posts here now with star ratings. All the member input is probably averaged together to come up with each person Karma rating.
I will definitely upgrade the forums to 3.0 when it becomes publically available. At that time we'll (the staff) will evaluate the system and decide whether we are going to use it. It just depends actually how it works and how useful the ratings meaning is. Any ways, other features coming include (pulled this from vBulletin's site):
This is by no means exhaustive, and should not be regarded as perfectly accurate: not everything was recorded in the todo and some things were changed too.
Added Features:
--to the user interface
General
* Quick registration system...username, password, email and any required custom fields and timezone
* Pop-up auto-refreshing buddylist with ICQ-style alerts when new buddies come online. You'll find a link in the temp buttons top right in the nav bar.
* Show the title of the last posted to thread for each forum on index.php
* Subscription to Threads/Forum without receiving e-mails
* Favorite threads - you don't get email from these either.
* User rating - Karma
* User ranking
* Password break-in watches -- too many failed attempts warning with a preset wait after too many failures.
* Threaded view
* Password protected forums
* Similar threads display
* Send an email "thanks for registering and welcome to .." on user registration (welcome email)
* Validity check for homepages
* Search engine friendly archive of open forums
* Happy b'day emails
* Much improved calander system (too many changes to mention)
* hit counter on announcements
* Digests: new posts/threads in selected forums daily/weekly/monthly
* "excerpt of message:" are now in the new reply email notifications
* 'report post to mod' sends anonymous copy to the original poster of the message
* Restyled FAQ section now looks similar to a forum
Posting
* WYSIWYG Editor for major text input fields (IE 5.5+Only)
* Minimum number of characters in post
* Insert smilie/vB code where cursor is (IE 5+ Only)
* Preview on edit
* Ability to add attachment when editing a post instead of just when creating
* Reason for editing
* Reason for deleting(for admins and mods)
User CP - Profile
* User Pictures - user can upload a personal picture. This picture is shown in the profile of the user.
* Completely revamped PM system (currently in work)
* Longer signature field with optional limit
Search
* Get daily for just one category
* Search only in subscribed forums
* A list of ignored words or words used in a search are added to the results page
* Option to find only started by 'username'
* Display matching forums in results
* Support for searching custom profile fields
* Search for exact username (e.g. turn off wildcards)
Polls
* Option for users to see who voted for which option (public vote)
* When you vote your name is highlighted when viewing results
* Poll results ordered by most to less voted
* Ability to post a poll AFTER a thread had started
Usability
* Hitting the back button no longer necessary when you have too many images
* Option to save cookie *on this computer* when logging in
* Login/logout ability in all pages, with user/pass form -- single login system
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