I feel like the database photos are our long lasting footprints here (as long lasting as a digital footprint can be)... and they have some value for others as a point of comparison.
The database photos are already receiving a certain sort of ranking based on thumbs up, which has a surprisingly wide dynamic range from 0 (many photos) to 50 or 60 (the ones that get caught in the "recently popular" trending images). I'm guessing the average is 2 or 3. Is that pessimistic?
Now people give thumbs ups for all sorts of reasons unrelated to the actual photography, of course, but maybe the easiest solution would be to come up with a group of most-thumbed database images of the year, maybe even for each gallery. For all I know this already exists.