Interesting post @lukebrn! I agree with your concerns, especially those voting circles are dangerous.

Maybe we should have the ability to quickly see some info on a user's voting behaviour right here on the platform, not through a third party tool. We could include metrics like: % of self voting, % of votes on top 5 most voted on, some form of vote-concentration-score.

This would make people more aware of their own behaviour, but more importantly it would make it more visible for the others. I can imagine a selfcorrecting mechanism from this. If you know somebody votes a lot on themselves or only on 5 friends, would you still vote for them? I could help all those hoping minnows to redirect their votes to the right content and less to the whales (the bad ones I mean) while hoping for an upvote back...

Cheers!