This can be implemented directly with followers. When you follow someone, you give them a portion of your voting power, creating a directional, weighted network. You could then limit the total number of followers a person can pick. The problem I foresee is whales forming communities. This is an extremely common and naturally occurring phenomenon called a "rich club" (see work by Bullmore and Sporns, e.g. this and this).
Using a page-rank like algorithm would only exacerbate the problem of whales having disproportionate influence. Even though well meaning, it's unlikely for the big whales to know many of the thousands of very minor accounts. Many of the whales have relationships with each other already, so it would be unrealistic to expect them not to want to follow each other, and for the ones they follow to reciprocate, forming well-connected sub-networks containing >99% of the voting power.
This is quite interesting @geoffrey (GOT reference?) I like the idea of followers sharing voting power, but wonder if that might possibly make a situation like on Instagram where people beg for follows and likes. (whether or not this is good or bad I guess depends on who you talk to).
I feel that from the data I have seen, the wealth of the whales is being distributed to more quality users and creating solid dolphins. But yes, while the whales are all very helpful and honest (from my experience).
Money can corrupt people and one sperm whale could sleep with a humback's wife (whale relations haha) and cause a huge rift in the ocean. A whale war would divide and devalue what steemit is striving for. So you have a great point that keeping a checks and balances system in place to prevent abuse of power is very important.
I mentioned this elsewhere, but I think having following separate from who you share your SP with is important. The people I follow because they produce good content are not necessarily the same people I would want curating content on my behalf.
That's a really good point I honestly did not think of.
Exactly the same thing what I was thinking. I follow people because they are good writers or otherwise interesting, not because I trust them.
True I have also pointed that out in the past that I may not have the same interests in all categories as people I follow. And as well, as you point out, I might value my follows as content producers, but maybe not as curators.