Sure, but commenters are going to ask questions like "who is moderating me" and "why am I allowed to moderate sometimes but not other times." On Slashdot, the

Sure, but commenters are going to ask questions like "who is moderating me" and "why am I allowed to moderate sometimes but not other times." On Slashdot, the answers to these seemingly simple questions are quite complex, but generally understood and embraced by the audience. I'm not sure that would be the case on a site like the Guardian. That said, you may be right that the benefits outweigh the confusion and that this could work fine at Guardian. (Although, even as a longtime Slashdot user, I have no idea what "upvote - consensus" means...)