I like the concept but I have doubts......Big question, who is going to designate whats "noise" and what is a highlight post? Thumbs up/down could not be used, hell it's already the most abused function on the site. You'll have groups form that will gain control of threads through their "up or down" votes and thus eliminate all other opinion. I don't know what the answer to this is but if you use thumbs/down as the guide you'll end up with what amounts to censorship beyond that of the mods already.