I'm glad you are working on this!
Constant down voting of posts and comments to control content, rewards, and reputations, is gradually destroying the Hive platform and has been for over five years.
And circle jerk upvoting is the entire foundation of business as usual - a community without both of those abuses would be a whole different world.
Circle voting is an enigma. It seems like everyone does it, yes? You vote on the content written by people you trust. In turn, they vote on your material. It's always been interesting to observe. It's when content quality drops significantly in the process that the community seems to take action. What's important about this draft is to make sure any action is transparent and communicated.