this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2023
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Here’s an idea: adjust the weights of votes by how predictable they are.
If account A always upvotes account B, those upvotes don’t count as much—not just because A is potentially a bot, but because A’s upvotes don’t tell us anything new.
If account C upvotes a post by account B, but there was no a priori reason to expect it to based on C’s past history, that upvote is more significant.
This could take into account not just the direct interactions between two accounts, but how other accounts interact with each of them, whether they’re part of larger groups that tend to vote similarly, etc.
In that situation, what function do the upvotes serve in the first place? If the potential audience already knows they’re going to read and enjoy more content from the same source, do they need to see upvotes to tell them what they already know?
(Remember that without effective permanent karma, upvotes only serve to call attention to particular posts or comments in the short term.)
What if account B only ever posts high quality content? What if everybody upvotes account B because their content is so good? What if they rarely post so it would be reasonable that a smaller subset of the population has ever seen their posts?
Your theory assumes large volumes of constant posts seen by a wide audience, but that's not how these sites work, your ideal would censor and disadvantage many accounts.