Maybe some sort of color-coded ranking system for tag gardening and the like, as long as their edits aren't reverted within a period of time, to prevent people from trying to game the system? Still, I don't see people currently fighting over uploads moving over to, say, tag edits just like that. Translations are a niche thing that few people can do, and wiki editing seems more of something that should be discussed in the forums briefly first before edits take place.
As for tracking stuff down, I know that story very, VERY well. Once upon a time, when Ars was extremely active, I left pixiv entirely for several years because I couldn't compete with the min-tagging, shifting to fixing scans in Photoshop and teaching myself all manner of technique to get the result I wanted. First to yandere and minitokyo, and tinami (When it was a thing) until people followed me there. Then to e-h, until I was followed there, and then to twitter, until I was followed there. The only thing I retain a monopoly on now are scans, and though at this point I've been at it for I think five years now, I'm not sure whether I've built up a reputation as a scan guy or not. At the very least, I've been recognized once on the internet, surprisingly enough in the middle of a Twitch chat by one of the other viewers.
Long story short, I've been there and done that with trying to find new sources when my integrity couldn't compete with min-tags. Now I've come full-circle back to pixiv in recent months, though I probably lose the battle to min-taggers about a third of the time. As many long-time uploaders do, one eventually mellows out in regards to uploading, so it doesn't really bother me anymore, as uploads are unimportant in the bigger scheme of life.
My several attempts at grooming a successor to my scan-works has failed, and I don't have the time or energy to go through everything on my own as my backlog balloons into the thousands. My scan cleans take on average 30-40 minutes, while my detexts range from 1 hour to 3 hours each, averaging about 1.5.
Edit: I should clarify, the only situation where I beat a min-tagger in a contest of speed is when I have already laid the tags and rating out, having analyzed the upload patterns of the artist and determined when it would be uploaded to pixiv. Otherwise, it is me uploading an image while the other party is busy with something. (I do everything manually by hand, I haven't used the bookmarklet in 6 years because it was a faulty PoS at the time)
