I do see how some who are more abrasive get squashed by the whales. There's plenty of content outside of the commonly thought of as "no no" subjects that don't seem to get the treatment described, but if you talk about politics or religion, you're discussing topics that are usually dividing topics. I could see some people using their voting power in line with their political or religious beliefs, because they can't see past their own fanaticism. I started reading lucylin's work shortly after arriving here. He seems to be one who speaks his mind and gets the treatment from the whales who have given him a permanent down vote regardless of what he posts. Other than him, I don't know who else is getting the treatment on the regular. I do read some political posts, but usually stay away from them. In an uncensored forum, you never know what will happen...

As for the circle, if you stay around long enough, you can see the consistent accounts that make up the majority of the "rich" upvotes. Although the system was created to allow this, I'm not sure how you could rewrite the code to avoid it and still have this chain work. Even spammers get down voted all the time, but still post...I'm not sure you can boot them off the system... then again, it's an uncensored community. Can't stop the spammers except through muting, I suppose, but they'll just keep spamming quietly. Lol