There are more subtle ways. Raising karma needed for downvote, better as a function of site size. Making downvotes cost you karma. Giving "objetive" scores to certain comments so voting them has an effect on voters' karma. Hiding comments score so you don't get influenced by others' votes. Delaying application of karma so you have to behave instead of probing how to game the system.
One thing that I've seen that doesn't work is to use simplistic algorithms that operate automatically based on karma and agreement. That method results in groupthink and, if the site is popular enough, people gaming the system for profit. Other times it generates two confronted bands. It seems that an external human feedback is needed peridically to inform the system what's undesirable.
Also to give modding quotas, so one only receives a fixed number of mod points that can be applied before having to wait to receive more. That would make each user have a similar impact on the board, whereby an upper limit is placed to curtail people from going on an unthinking modding binge.
That creates a strong bias for people with lots of time on their hands which I reckon tips the voting bias towards people not actually running a startup.
Karma isn't a function of usefulness to the community, it's a function of time spent on the site, broadly speaking. As such, I suspect that those that have the most experience with startups on average tend to be below the mean in the karma pool. Thus giving those with the most karma an additional boost in shaping the site dynamics would push the site further in the direction of "fans of startups" as opposed to "people working on startups".
Aren't most people here fans of his to some degree? I mean, I don't accept his writing as The Word of Landru, but I thought most people found the site due to his writings and linking to it?
There are more subtle ways. Raising karma needed for downvote, better as a function of site size. Making downvotes cost you karma. Giving "objetive" scores to certain comments so voting them has an effect on voters' karma. Hiding comments score so you don't get influenced by others' votes. Delaying application of karma so you have to behave instead of probing how to game the system.
One thing that I've seen that doesn't work is to use simplistic algorithms that operate automatically based on karma and agreement. That method results in groupthink and, if the site is popular enough, people gaming the system for profit. Other times it generates two confronted bands. It seems that an external human feedback is needed peridically to inform the system what's undesirable.