Would it be possible to mark the "candidate" stories in some way, to explain to the user why they were seeing this possibly lame post?
I used to be bothered by seeing off topic stuff and memes in a subreddit I visit but the sub started adding flare for different kinds of posts. I found this completely alleviated my psychological revulsion to the things I didn't like once they were categorized correctly. So, a meme on the front page would have annoyed me, but that same thing labeled "meme" didn't bother me at all.
I used to be bothered by seeing off topic stuff and memes in a subreddit I visit but the sub started adding flare for different kinds of posts. I found this completely alleviated my psychological revulsion to the things I didn't like once they were categorized correctly. So, a meme on the front page would have annoyed me, but that same thing labeled "meme" didn't bother me at all.