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I always liked the idea of adding meta data to your up vote (funny, insightful etc) just choose from a list, and people can filter out category's they have no interest in. together with a system where you have to earn voting rights (to become a 'citizen' of a site), for instance: you have to be a member for at least a year and you start with a veined number of up/down votes.

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Slashdot solved that problem over a decade ago. Semi-Random users receive moderation powers and can assign a post to several categories (Flame-bait, Troll, Funny, Redundant, Insightful, Informative). Any other user has the power to review moderator choices. Get enough negative feedback and you lose the chance to be chosen as moderator in the future.

You also cannot moderate and participate in the same conversation. Posting a comment revokes any moderation in the thread.

You can change your user preferences to augment the moderation choices, such as -5 to funny and +3 to insightful.

CmdrTaco provides history on how the system evolved: http://slashdot.org/moderation.shtml (1999)

The can't-mod/post-simultaneously rule is super annoying though, and I wish it were at least a bit more subtle. For instance, maybe something like "can't mod the same sub-thread you've posted in" or whatever (to stop people from modding down their opponent in an argument).

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