[scohesc]

I wonder if it would be enough to have global moderators create "issues" like: - Do you like Havarti or Cheddar? - Do you support using metric or imperial as a standard in the USA? - Do you ... ... ...

Have the users fill out these answers on profile creation (the ones you don't answer you can't participate in) - and if you contribute on a specific topic and assign a delta to somebody with the opposite viewpoint, the answer you put on your profile gets swapped? You could track how often someone changes a topic on their profile to see if they're "flippy floppy" or if they're fairly hard-stanced on the issue.

You'd still have to have moderation to make sure you don't have people with profile-marked anti-topics making posts supporting the viewpoints.