Excellent point. Currently HN accounts get much higher scores if they contribute content, than if they make valuable comments. Those should be two separate scores. Instead, accounts with really good advice have lower scores than accounts that have just automated re-posting of content from elsewhere to HN.

Fair (and you’re basically describing the xz hack; vouching is done for online identities and not the people behind them).

Even with that risk I think a reputation based WoT is preferable to most alternatives. Put another way: in the current Wild West, there’s no way to identify, or track, or impose opportunity costs on transacting with (committing or using commits by) “Epstein but in code”.

But the blowback is still there. The Epstein saga has and will continue to fragment and discipline the elite. Most people probably do genuinely regret associating with him. Noam Chomsky's credibility and legacy is permanently marred, for example.