I think that the way in which votes are sought sort of makes this more of a reddit-type of space than an open forum, in that many would withhold their actual thoughts on things if they believe them to be counter to the prevailing opinion, for fear of economic repercussions. In this way a site that has people always going towards the mean consensus on subjects tends to stifle less popular opinions by design as people choose to self-filter, and I think there are pros and cons to forums where posts are sorted by votes as opposed to purely by the time the post was written.

This site is a totally different animal in that it pulls more of the economic incentives right to the forefront and users can invest in the account itself primarily through the site as opposed to off-site like how posts are influenced on Reddit via botnets etc., although apparently such devices are employed albeit in a different manner here. Not being argumentative, just thinking about how this site or Reddit or other forums and their users adapt to their platform of choice.