Click a "Like" button or something similar and entries can appear at a higher rank. A "low friction" way (to use everyone's favorite buzzword) to lend their legitimacy to a request. Requests can then be sorted by number of votes.
People who like a request should be named (to the extent that other modes of interaction on Wikipedia Requests are public and logged).
If I were feeling especially devious, I would add social media "share" buttons to allow people to share the requests through networks outside of Wikipedia. (Not the creepy kind that track you, just icons that link you to the website.) Alas, this might get me thrown off a cliff.
Declining per T283519: Wikipedia Requests has been retired and https://wpx.wmflabs.org/ does not exist anymore.