Sounds interesting... I remember well being a "real" content creator at a time when when Matt Cutts was the "anti-spam God" at Google and they were constantly tweaking rankings.

If you want to be ahead of the curve here, the very beginnings of "spun content" are starting to show up here... and there has to be some way to detect it.

I like the idea of a "clean" trending based around authentic user reputations and some kind of "engagement score," as well.