what if voting was influenced by Discourse Reactions - Beyond Likes?
each emoji per reaction could have a fractional vote value, and certain emojis could be worth more than others. for example, a heart reaction to a reply in a topic would add 0.25 to the topic’s total votes, and a thumbs up would add 0.10. perhaps a thumbs down would subtract 0.10? there could be an upper limit to prevent reaction spam, maybe 1.0 total? (if only one reaction allowed, then it’s worth max limit)
in other words, the more a user participates via reactions across multiple replies in a topic, the more weight his total vote carries in that topic, and reactions would have more meaning too.
also, maybe weighted scale of reactions could be displayed on hover over total reactions in topic list?