All true, to which I'd add: It's like giving a big sales force a financial incentive: you have to be careful because they'll just game it, relentlessly, all da

All true, to which I'd add: It's like giving a big sales force a financial incentive: you have to be careful because they'll just game it, relentlessly, all day long. They won't care about your corporate priorities -- just getting that incentive money. On SO, people get "reputation points." Those "same 5 people" game that system like salespeople winning that prize. You answered a question? They don't want you as a competitor, so they downvote you. You don't like their answer? Too bad, you don't have enough reputation points to downvote them. To pick another analogy: they're like high school cheerleaders voting on who can become one of them.