...then Everything would probably get into legal trouble! The book review system at Amazon.com works in quite a similar way as the voting/XP system of Everything. When you have written a review for Amazon, it can be voted up or down by others. You are supposed to vote a review up when you 'found it helpful' (whatever that means). In practice, this results in negative book reviews to get voted down, and positive and enthusiastic reviews to get voted up. The more reviews you write, the more chance you have of getting voted up, and the higher your ranking will become. The Pseudo_Intellectual of Amazon is called Harriet Klausner, who has written more than 500 reviews (no, she's not even close to being an M-noder :-).
Amazon has tried to patent a number of procedures on its page (the '1 click system' of ordering for example) in the past. What if the company patents its voting system? The consequences for Everything would be immediate. Personally, I hate software patents, because they stand in the way of progress, but can this sort of thing be stopped? | 
