@tal I think you understand the concerns here! The devil's in the details, and it's annoyingly difficult to create a tidy aesthetic solution with acceptable consequences.

Ranking based on user preference is interesting, but I suspect it eventually escalates to creating another black box algorithm? Youtube / Instagram / TokTik / etc? There's a whooole rabbit hole here that could seem like it's helping at each step, but easily becomes a mess of relevant factors.

And don't forget that people are more likely to click stuff that makes them mad!

I kinda think this shouldn't be fediverse policy, it would probably be best to keep it to visible (public) actions like votes and boosts.