I actually came up with a system like that soon after I arrived here in 2017. It involved a panel of randomly selected "judges" triggered by downvotes. If the judges agreed the content was abuse the violator could take the punishment or appeal to a higher court and risk an even worse punishment.

There were three levels of court:

• Tribunal Court (minnow judges)
• Appeals Court (dolphin judges)
• Supreme Court (whale judges)

https://peakd.com/steem/@edicted/steemit-virtual-government-declaration-of-independence

Judges would be paid a small amount of inflation to be incentivized to do the work. There would be no way to power up this reputation with outside influence. The only way to become a whale would be to work as a judge for a really long time.