Well, I more meant that even if you’re correct if you’re a dick about it, people won’t like it.

Respectfully (I’m honestly trying here, I hope it doesn’t come off otherwise), I still don’t agree. I’ve seen plenty of times where I’ll respectfully disagree with someone and the other poster will be a complete dick back for no reason, but still line up with the agreement of the hive and get plenty more upvotes than I got.

Don’t get me wrong, I agree with you that it will influence the outcome, but from my experience, clearly “agreeing with the hive” is overwhelmingly the most important factor when it comes to how many upvotes or downvotes you’ll get. It’s certainly not universal, as I’ve been surprised sometimes by how well my disagreement has been received, but generally speaking it’s the case.

And we aren’t talking about simply being wrong or right. One can be wrong, but not really strongly disagree, and still be accepted. I wouldn’t be surprised that (removing being nasty), the harder you make it to maintain the position of the hive mind the more likely it is to get downvoted.

I can’t think of a better system, but it’s still deeply flawed when it comes to promoting quality posts.