Thank you, shmem!

This site doesn't need to boost its reputation in the eyes of a wider world ... it wouldn't be a monastery any more ;-)

We'd only be hiding the worst of the worst. It seems to me there are always these nodes that are so cringe-worthy that I feel embarrassed that the wider world will see them. And genuinely concerned that some newbie will read them without the discernment necessary to reject them.

The rules for reaping a node are well established

The rules for the activation of this mechanism would be equally well established.

NodeReaper isn't sent to do his work by an algorithm, rather quite sensible folks do that afaik.

Alas, you're mistaken. Once the defined criteria are met, NodeReaper consumes the node automatically. (The triggering action has to be a "vote for reap", however; a downvote won't do it. Unfortunately.)

SPAM and such aren't free speech, since they are no speech at all.

I would say that's only true if the offending content is posted by a bot. Also, "and such" is both vague and broad. Surely, plenty of reap-worthy content would qualify as speech.

My point is, reaping is far more absolute -- both in terms of how the content is hidden and in how difficult it is to restore -- than this "crap shrouding" mechanism would be. For those who are concerned about "free speech", reaping is a greater threat, because some number of real people here have collectively said "this content should be removed." People aren't necessarily saying that when they simply downvote a note.

we as a community have a right to protect ourselves from the effects wrought by bad actors

Yes, and we did that - as a community - in the most friendly and peaceful way

We did? How? By bullying "bad actors" mercilessly until they withdraw in disgust?

even bad advice is educational in my eyes.

That is an interesting contention worthy of further exploration.

Substantial difference based on supposition isn't far from prejudice, sorry. At least a very weak argument presented as is alone.

True. I'm trying to be transparent with my biases.

I thought that this possibility is worth mentioning.

It certainly is a possibility, and worth mentioning. :-)

Thanks again!