Good points, it’s really not my goal to encourage such things.
I don’t think such behaviors (discriminate/belittle) are related to a specific system, there are against our Code of Conduct anyway.
In fact, i was thinking about this to make all editors equal, currently they’re not regarding auto-editor status, because it’s based on suggestions by other editors and because the system is kinda broken (Call for nominating new autoeditors (AE))
So XP system would just be a way to put some light on those experienced editors who deserved to have more privileges (because they do good work) but aren’t “popular” enough to be nominated.
I also think current beginner/normal/auto-editor privileges levels aren’t enough. A more fine-grained system would help limiting damages to database. Think about a more progressive way to reach the current auto-editor status.
Something we could do is to calculate XP for all editors, only editor, auto-editors and admins could see the actual score, and it wouldn’t be visible by all.
It could still be used to trigger stuff, like an auto-editor election, without having the “competition” drawback.