If the abusers use automated systems to up vote their own accounts, why doesn't SFR use the same methods to flag them? Or isn't that possible?
It's a work in progress. It is also limited by the SP available.
The delegation and/or flagging could be done through sock puppet accounts if people are willing to dedicate the SP for the cause.
You see, @sadkitten used to approach it with that mindset. Unfortunately, it wasn't fruitful. Not enough people willing to let go a portion of their SP to be dedicated for flagging.
There are members of SFR that use said method to flag.
Let's bring it back to larger stakeholders. Take Mr. 83, again, in order to effectively "counter" him, the community would have to pool at least 2M SP indefinitely...and that's just to counter one individual and his 3-4 alts.
Tell you what, the last time this was attempted, it lasted about a week.
It is also important to remember that those "bad actors" you talk about tend to have many supporters. So, even in the example I provided, it's not as simple as 2M SP. It's, in fact, much greater.
Thank you for that bit of history, I wasn't aware of earlier attempts to curb the abuse this way.
Got some reading to do :)