<p>The reputation requirement was raised to combat some of the bad reviews happening with unexperienced users taking part in the queues.</p>

<p>If you want the full background info, see this Meta Stack Overflow discussion: <a href="http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/186373/propose-a-privilege-to-sit-in-the-500-reputation-mark">Propose a privilege to sit in the 500 reputation mark</a>.</p>