To prove seriousness (i.e. real love of Wikipedia) and to prevent sock puppetry why not restrict the allocation of trust to those users who have edited x(500? 1000?) times?
I would think that this would resolve most problems.
You might have to make an exception for certain current sysops who don't really edit but have proved their worth to the community.
Sysop status would become automatic after x number of edits provided the user hadn't accumulated negative votes already from existing trusted users. You could keep the voting figures out of the public domain until the trigger figure is reached to prevent gamesplaying, since people would not know their voting score.
Over time sysop status could be revoked if votes against a user became weighted too negatively. For questionable cases you could call a vote.
Good behaviour conversely would inevitably lead to the regaining of trust as people change their votes and might lead to the regaining of sysop status.
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