I don’t think it’s a stupid idea. If anything, I am grateful that you took the time and effort to propose something to improve the situation. I think with a bit of thought and some iterations, we can arrive to an improved form that a lot of people can support.
The ranking system can definitely be useful. Personally, I would start with the smallest change possible. If our main object is stopping spam, this is how I would leverage the ranking system:
- Rank 0
- Rigid publishing checks and maybe peer review.
- One new island per month.
- A one-month delay on payments (which everyone currently goes through).
- Limited access to in-island transactions.
- Limited access to the sponsored row.
- Rank 1
- Normal publishing checks.
- Two new islands per month.
- A two-week delay on payments.
- Lifted limits on in-island transactions.
- Improved access to the sponsored row.
- Rank 2
- Normal publishing checks.
- Three new islands per month (teams can put more islands out than individual developers).
- A one-week delay on payments.
- Unlimited in-island transactions.
- Unlimited access to the sponsored row.
As you suggested, higher ranks reflect trust into the developer and their activity. Developers would compete to achieve higher ranks for the extra benefits, and players trust higher ranked developers more.
I would tie ranks to development time/effort. A team collects development time/effort from all contributing team members. If developers stop working, they obviously lose their rank, one rank per month.
What do you think about this simplified version?
By the way, I made my own proposals before. Feel free to check them out and let me know what you think. They are intended to address one issue at a time.
I stopped writing proposals, because I feel spam is just going to cloud our judgement. We need to address it first. Frankly, your proposal is promising.