A reward curve that limits too power of the whales:

https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://steemitimages.com/600x800/https://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/QmYnumzLv5W4o8pWZ8mn9rpk7ntnDhJs2jtykWxQNKG5KL

When I made the pot I made it trail off at whale level. That was over a year ago. Now I think to should trail off much earlier Orca or even Dolphin level.

Sure you can make multiple accounts. But if the curve trails off at Dolphin level you would need to make and manage a hundred accounts.

Which brings me to the 2nd idea: maybe a restriction on votes. Like: no votes below reputation of say 32. StackOverflow works that way and is quite successful with that model.

Voting is meant as curation to be done by humans. Restricting votes to those who proven themselves by reaching a certain reputation will aid that goal.

We get rid of the dust down voter, bot's accounts would need to make useful postings before becoming usable and whales who spilt their accounts would need to make a significant amount of postings on all their accounts to make them usable.

PS: Don't fall for the Nirvana / perfect solution fallacy. We don't need a perfect, cheat free solution. We only need a better solution.