People who have devoted more time and energy to EA and have a deeper grasp of it should have a bigger role in defining what is or isn’t worth other people reading. It’s not just judgment (is it right or wrong), it’s also originality—is this a new opinion for EA’s to think about? is this a topic which EA’s haven’t really engaged? It’s hard for a new person to make these calls.
Karma is a reasonably good indicator of meaningful engagement with the EA forum—as good as any other that can be quickly and fairly calculated.
I would add one caveat: to use a more powerful supervote, a person should be required to add a comment. From personal experience, I am very happy to have dissenting opinions and arguments against my posts, but it’s frustrating to get downvotes without any explanation.
Denis comments on Poll: Should people with more forum karma have more powerful votes?