If you are not familiar with StackExchange, it is a wonderful network:
It is a network of question and answer websites on topics in varied fields, each site covering a specific topic, where questions, answers, and users are subject to a reputation award process. The sites are modeled after Stack Overflow, a forum for computer programming questions that was the original site in this network. The reputation system allows the sites to be self-moderating.
Obviously the purpose of Stackexchange is nothing like reddit but I think it has potential to be used as such and it would give the community more control than current social websites if used in the same way.
For example, typically users post a question which can be answered or commented on. The moderation is done by the users themselves and along with posting questions and answers, users can add comments to them and edit text written by others.
I think it would be really interesting to test this out but it can only move forward with your help.
This is the link for the proposal in the Area51 site:
http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/89032/reddit?referrer=4PWqYa_3wTZNivvZAq4BKg2