> the fact that's it's not so appealing puts some people off but also rewards those working hard at it
Right... why would you want to only reward your users who work hard? That's idiotic.
Why wouldn't you want to make the site easy to use, with high-quality data, for everyone? When that really wouldn't be that hard to do.
When I was apartment-hunting, over the course of weeks, I literally learned how to recognize particularly spammy brokers by the formatting of their headlines, so I wouldn't click on them... (Four asterisks at beginning and end? Ignore. All-caps with a strange abbreviation for bedroom? Ignore. Etc.) This is a skill I deeply wish I hadn't had to learn. It's ridiculous.