"In all fairness I have one going with my friends I talk to them about the posts I most want to see and vote their posts up all the time to help motivate them to keep contributing. "

This doesn't sound like a circle-jerk at all, it just sounds like you guys are sharing quality posts.

"I think that is up to the community to regulate."

I'm hoping that my post I linked above on the low-quality posts that strike me as junk mail quality allow this to happen.

"The opposite of this is Facebook where I was one of the original users and spent over $100,000 in ads only to have my posts get 5 or 10 likes on them. "

I have a sneaky suspicion that money, or "lost value", is going to Facebook.