Maybe it's time to forget tinkering and go full bhoona. It had been suggested before so it's not my idea but how about some kind of decaying vote strength if repeated. Eh, you vote for an author two posts running, your vote is ten percent less effective. If you leave a gap it resets by +10 % kind of thing. This would be to stop repeated circle jerking.

Something like that.

People say there would be ways round it but hey there are ways round everything.

Tinkering won't fix things. Change will fix things