If the comments could be downloaded like a newsgroup then people could start tinkering with everything from bayesian filtering to some type of natural language processing. Sadly that won't ever happen.
As it sits now you have a small group of already very busy people who lack any expertise or even education in language oriented algorithms versus a possibly large and diverse group of trolls who can try anything they like, as often as they like. There is just no way the /. crew can win so long as the game is played by these rules.
The only possible solution is to take the slashcode, start up a slashdot clone, but make it so that you can download all of the comments as they're posted in a plain vanilla newsreader. Then setup some examples of bayesian filtering or whatever is buzzword compliant at the time. Not only would this encourage people to try to figure out better ways to sort the cruft, but it would also facillitate discussion since you would actually be able to see what comments were posted since you last read! (ie. the more we advance, the more we seem to lose...)
This also has the added benefit of taking some of the trolls fun away since they can no longer be assured that if a troll works as it currently does on /., that everyone would see it.
