Regardless of whether a given comment is OK now, once this detox experiment gains steam will anyone be able to mention anything about any of the designated concepts under the anxious eyes of a newly deputized membership?
(I'm specifically thinking about the 99th percentile of moderation activity given the large number of people on the site and the fact that neutral opinions are not counted by the current voting system.)
Or, will these sorts of down votes be weighted? And if so, by what? Using the karma system doesn't seem appropriate - there are many well-spoken members on HN that hold wildly different, even antagonistic, viewpoints.
What inhibits abusive moderation activity of the sort observed when a CTR-like group was actively manipulating /r/politics?
the downvotes will likely not be weighted. flagged comments will likely have +3 karma as much as they have -3 karma. at least, that's the hope of a 1-week moratorium, right?
To answer your question, the only thing stopping the abusive meta-moderation activity are the two mods here. So long as the posts otherwise meet the posting guidelines, they'll likely remain unmoderated. If they're not flagged, they might not even pop up on the moderator's radar.
Basically, it is up to you to point the mods at things that may or may not be abusive. Which I guess answers your question.