I am not sure that this is the final answer - as you say, a stopgap - but I think it is definitely worth exploring.
People that may object - some big well established posters who rake in large author rewards with limited to no interaction beyond hitting the post button - these people might, perhaps rightly, argue that they have spent the time building up their following and they will be penalized by this, in terms of being made to look selfish for merely maintaining the status quo.
But for the long- term future of the site it, or something similar to it, would seem to make sense
Cheers
"these people might, perhaps rightly, argue that they have spent the time building up their following and they will be penalized by this"
Technically speaking, they won't be penalized, there will simply be more competition from some authors that hypothetically will be willing to share more than 25%. I realize the practical effect is they could make (probably slightly) less.
Thank you for the comment, I found you on SF!
Agreed - I think that the majority of autovoting would remain largely unchanged, but I would expect to see less flooding of newcomers to vote on the trending page if they realize they can get a larger absolute return from a bigger % of a smaller post.
It may be objected to in some quarters but I am all for market forces playing out...
Agreed, and removing that flood of sycophants and "nice post" commenters would really help clean-up the look of trending posts, without requiring flagging to hide those comments.