maybe some sortof point system would be nice. You get points by providing good bug reports, good forum answers, good PRs, good code reviews, providing tests, donating, etc., but you can lose points by wasting people's time or being a jerk, for instance. Then maintainers can prioritize PRs by people with good points, regardless of how they got the points (be it from donating time, code, or other ways of helping the community & project).
The problem I see with that is that people gain and lose interest in a project over time.
Some other people become disenchanted with how the project is going and try to fork it when it doesn't go their way. This is not inherently bad... many good projects come from forks... but it is not an ideal situation to have.
