I've always wanted to do a featured site(s), I'm just not sure the best way to do it. I'm hesitant to require posting for anything as it encourages people to spam to get their post counts up. I was thinking of maybe doing a vote type system like vbulletin.org does (over on their left hand side).
Voting would also be a task to create because users here can create multiple account so on the flip side of that idea you just brought to light would also kinda have the same effect, so if you think about it then that person will create account after account after account just so he can vote on his own website. Vbulletin, Mybb etc all have IP blocking for a set number of sign ups, but they don't always account for the proxies and people cracking into unsecured networks so they have a changed IP address, so there is really no way IP addresses can be blocked from doing so. I had this issue with one of my old forums before so that is why I brought that to attention. If you can find out a way to block proxies, well then right there is half the battle.
I was thinking maybe having a sort of security feature for each user signing up for the featured website program, how about this? There is hundreds of ways to assure pure content, but the best one by far would be the credit card, now when I say credit card, cards are issued to 1 account holder only, there name is on there card, so if they type in a false name for there card or false details they will be unable to sign up for the program, the card has to be valid, cards are linked to the name of the card holder, so have them sign up with card holder info, just for security purposes. This will in turn give you the full name of the person and you have there card info, so if they try to create another account you would have there card holder name and there card info, in turn if they put in another card then they would have to put in there name again, and the system wont allow it because that name is linked to another account so to speak. So I think its flawless, and if by chance for some reason you cant connect the card number to the card holders real name, well how many credit cards can the card holder actually own, so really the system will still work 98% I notice lots of websites use credit card info for trails and age verifications so I dont see why this cant work. Tell me what you think?