Understandable. And I'm glad that the accounts are being used for upvoting. In my opinion, the flag wars don't do a whole lot of good, but it's your stake and their stake, so you can all do what you want with it. At some point, however, both sides will need to evaluate whether or not what they are doing is beneficial in the long-run. And I don't mean "beneficial for the platform," because that's something that's not easily measured or measurable.
Wasting voting power on up-voting and down-voting the same content day after day results in nothing but lost potential for both "investing" sides. Surely, an agreement can be reached that doesn't involve perpetual up- and down-voting. I just don't know how such an agreement can be reached. Eventually, one side will just likely give up and move on. If that happens, my posts will still be there waiting for the extra upvoting power. :)
"Wasting vote power" is kind of a misnomer, as the reward pool is still paid out to those posts where there is the greatest consensus for a payout. If there is disagreement on some posts, such as @ozchartart's, other posts (such as yours) gain in value.
I was referring to the voting power of the individual users, as in, the percentage of their power meter. Is that what you're talking about? Maybe I'm misunderstanding you right now.
Replying here to @smooth
I very much agree. The more freely we express ourselves (in this case by votes) the more the system is informed by a wisdom of crowds effect. In fact there is value to just seeing what is controversial, for example in dating sites it has been shown that a high level of disagreement over attractiveness is a better predictor of who gets the most dates than the aggregate score alone.
Yes, I know what you mean. My point is slightly different. Perhaps it is okay or even better that voters who disagree simply express their individual views rather than decide to engage in a 'collusive scheme' to amplify their vote power by both agreeing to not vote.
No one does that on other sites such as reddit; some people upvote and others downvote, resulting in a net score. While vote power isn't limited there (I think; afaik reddit's current scoring is opaque), attention is.
In fact, having both opposing votes present contains useful information; reddit has a "controversial" ranking which shows content getting both up- and down-votes. Given a healthier downvote economy here, such a thing might be equally useful. I know I'd certainly be interested to see where the disagreements lie.
Individually, yes it would probably be better to agree to not vote and save vote power, but I don't see how this helps the system as a whole.
Nesting.
I agree that what while talking things out is great, unless we actually change the system itself this will just keep on going forever.