So, if one can undermine both voting and consensus,
why is voting worse?
One reason might be that I would automatically discount a flood of
similarly worded messages from people who have never joined the
discussion before. Consensus leaves me wiggle room to find ways to
make adjustments, based on the rich fabric of information I get from
lots of discussions.
Voting, on the other hand, is manipulable unless I have equal freedom
to simply discount some votes. And that's fine, too. Except that it
removes one of the big positives from the voting system, namely that
it's more clearly defined and objective.
One solution that might be greeted with massive howls of protest (or
might not!) would be to someday restrict voting to 'members' who have
contributed at a level of say $20 per year, perhaps with some
oldtimers grandfathered in for 5 years. There are pros and cons to
this, obviously.
But it is a fairly common way of restricting voting privileges in
nonprofit organizations.
--Jimbo