It requires a combination of crowdsourcing and machine learning (NLP is cool, but optional).
It is part rating, voting, tagging, reputation, recommendation and more.
It sounds complicated, it isnt for users (~2 clicks from ~10% of readers) but is for me to build (3rd week with rails, so relative).
It is mostly still theory at this point but the math checks out and user tests have exceeded expectations but are very early stage.
If you've read this and think I'm crazy, you're right (best to accept it).
If you think I'm naive, it's a possibility that's kept me up many nights over the past year.
If you are interested in learning more on the off chance I'm right, you can reach me at (Mat . Tyndall at gmail).
I am in San Francisco working on this full time after dropping out from grad school.
I will tell you in excruciating detail in person or via Skype how it works and why.
I have not slept very much in the past week so I have no idea if posting this is a good idea but I doubt I'll get even 5 votes or any takers but thanks for reading.