I think the hardest part would be trying to discern intent just from someone up-voting one of these honeypot articles, given the loose definition of what's considered on-topic here. You'd be stuck between being subtle and catching false-positives, and being obvious and driving people away / generating useless discussion with obviously off-topic stories on the front page. I'd argue against this for that reason, and because you'd probably alter user's voting behavior to try to "avoid the honeypot" rather than simply evaluating the article.
I'd take a different approach, and argue that most users are capable and willing to filter articles that they think fit the guidelines, however I'd bet that most people don't leave the front page when considering what to vote on. This self-imposed filter bubble of convenience seems to create two separate areas of content, with more pop-culture-leaning tech news on the front page with tons of comments and votes, and a graveyard of dead/questionable/interesting/technical articles without any feedback on new.
I would experiment with adjusting a user's per-article voting power, either silently or with feedback in the form of a voting power average similar to karma average -- however, I'd adjust it based on where the stories are and/or how much feedback they've already received when a user votes on them. I'd discourage voting on already super-popular stories and encourage voting on stories that haven't gotten much exposure (from "new"). You're also forced in the latter case to evaluate an article on its merit, before it has any comments and few points, similar to how you evaluate comments now without seeing comment karma, which seems to have helped with comment quality.
TLDR: Front-page stories with 2k votes don't need another 1k - we know it's a good article. Those 1k votes would be better served picking out gems and interesting "smaller" news from /new and other areas. Disincentivizing voting only on popular stories and incentivizing voting on new/unfiltered new ones would better serve the community than trying to catch people with honeypots.
I'd take a different approach, and argue that most users are capable and willing to filter articles that they think fit the guidelines, however I'd bet that most people don't leave the front page when considering what to vote on. This self-imposed filter bubble of convenience seems to create two separate areas of content, with more pop-culture-leaning tech news on the front page with tons of comments and votes, and a graveyard of dead/questionable/interesting/technical articles without any feedback on new.
I would experiment with adjusting a user's per-article voting power, either silently or with feedback in the form of a voting power average similar to karma average -- however, I'd adjust it based on where the stories are and/or how much feedback they've already received when a user votes on them. I'd discourage voting on already super-popular stories and encourage voting on stories that haven't gotten much exposure (from "new"). You're also forced in the latter case to evaluate an article on its merit, before it has any comments and few points, similar to how you evaluate comments now without seeing comment karma, which seems to have helped with comment quality.
TLDR: Front-page stories with 2k votes don't need another 1k - we know it's a good article. Those 1k votes would be better served picking out gems and interesting "smaller" news from /new and other areas. Disincentivizing voting only on popular stories and incentivizing voting on new/unfiltered new ones would better serve the community than trying to catch people with honeypots.