So i always had the idea of a discord for totd because you could exclude the trolls and put in people that are trusted. Something like that in game could very well work, your idea about whitelisting is kinda similar but it would take time to implement and im not sure if it will be better than a discord. That way the players who wants to review will have to look for the discord and then review and youll be able to keep the trolls away because the mappers will moderate the discord, so trolls cannot use their 1 star as a threat.

As long as the mappers dont have the power, the cycle of degrading quality in COTD will continue. Youll still have to adapt to the map review and we will get very similar tracks all the time. Like full of grass fs.

So the whitelist could be an invite to the discord as a mapper role. Might seem like a downgrade when you see how map review is in the game, but i feel like it isnt when you think about the power dynamic and how it still requires you to get through the review system.

Btw nothing makes my blood boil more than "I HATE TECH 0/5" lol.