Yeah, but if it becomes known that that is a search signal, it effectively lets people purchase their way up the search rankings by paying other people to tip t

Yeah, but if it becomes known that that is a search signal, it effectively lets people purchase their way up the search rankings by paying other people to tip them. You'd have a much smaller pool of legit tips to overcome, because so few people pay for content, before you could become the most tipped article for any given topic.