Question: since reputation is effectively based on agreement, what measures are in place or planned to allow for the fact that “consensus” is not a basis of conclusive evidence or validation/proof of anything?
In other words: if 99.9% agree with me, this has precisely no more bearing on whether I’m right, than 99.9% of people disagreeing has any bearing on whether I’m wrong.
The reputation is distributed based on the acceptance rate & scores of your contributions, which initially is going to be nearly 100% related to what the moderators decide on. As such, you can only get a high reputation once you prove you know what you're doing to our team.
Now, take into consideration that a single person with a top rated reputation will be able to outvote even a 100 people (depending on how we tweak the numbers after the initial weeks), and the fact that our moderation team will constantly keep overlooking these contributions to make sure there's no abuse and that great contributions are not misjudged.
It really isn't based on what the majority agrees on, but what the experts agree on. We believe our teams are full of experts for each assigned category and the contributors that get to such high reputations will be close to that as well.
As a final note - if we find people abusing high reputation to hide precious contributions and support their friends/their multiaccounts etc. - we will take action and reduce their reputation and/or suspend their account.