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If the witnesses agree upvoting yourself should not be allowed, and the change is made, then I will go along with what the group decides on this matter. Let me ask you this though, which would you prefer:

  1. Someone upvotes themselves for everyone to see, using their influence to adjust the conversation accordingly. I've done this before when I think a comment of mine (on my own blog post, as an example) is important for the conversation.
  2. Someone upvotes themselves via proxy using an army of bots they cycle through randomly.

Which one, to you, provides more transparency and honesty? If they do release a patch to prevent #1, #2 will surely happen. The problem, it seems, is an underlying moral or philosophical disagreement about what is reasonable and what is bullshit. That, unfortunately, will not be solved with a pull request. It's a matter of ideas.