I still have faith in the community to do the right thing in setting and applying good standards..
The more and more such cases pile up the harder and harder it will be for them to pretend to ignore it and still feel good about themselves in their actions..
Also, the more people that stand up to it the less intimidated the rest will be..
Edit-
Even without making subjective, case by case judgements, if you control what the algorithm is, you control the outcome. If you control the inputs of the algorithm (such as by controlling who the merit sources are), you have even greater control over the outcome. Making the algorithm public reduces control somewhat but it makes it somewhat subject to manipulation.
I agree that merit, and therefore voting power, are poorly distributed.. Especially at first but it is improving I think..
Another factor is that those who were at odds with and rejecting the old trust system at the time, creating their own trust lists before the new trust system happened, got a huge jump start into DT, and a huge jump start into acquiring merits for voting power..
I think mostly the "scambuster" crowd, who have/had loyalty to Lauda, and I find tend to be more authoritarian and power-seeking in nature, those gunning to become DT and to create their reputations, who got the head start..
It has and will take time for us libertarian minded folk to balance that out, but will happen..
But it has sense been slowly balancing and the initial head start is loosing its advantage.. Very slowly.. Maybe another year..