Oooph... You are dropping stations because of bad QC and you have not yet published nor explained the rules? Bad move. Really bad move. You are going to tick off a lot of people. You are going to lose half of your 280,000 station that you are so proud of having if you implement this bad practice.
May I suggest you get your QC implemented and working before you start dropping stations. I say keep all the stations but award the good ones instead. Only drop a station if it is really off base on the analysis. But if you really want to drop bad stations it needs to be worked in gradually over time. I didn't see anything in WheelinDealin"s data worth dropping over. There are tons of stations around me that are way worse. Something else is going on.
So I would suggest to bring back a working Gold Star as part of the QC but it needs to be explained and have merit and be measurable and comparable to other nearby stations on different metrics. And there shouldn't be any giving of Gold Stars for just reporting for 5 days (as it was before), because that is like getting a participation award like my kid gets in soccer every season... They are all winners, there are no losers. Terrible thing to do, but my kid knows better and gives no importance to those awards. They are chucked in a drawer. Unlike his 1st place pine wood race trophy and first and second place track medals that he proudly displays.