Well, if there are no other votes for a given query then an upvoted link will go to the top. Once it's there then that link is now more visible to others who ca

Well, if there are no other votes for a given query then an upvoted link will go to the top. Once it's there then that link is now more visible to others who can either agree or disagree. EDIT: Like I've pointed out in other comments the default scoring system can be customized and that behavior could be changed.