I think part of the problem is that a lot of people still seem to think there is a knowable/measurable/learnable source of absolute truth but since any learning is almost always implicitly "Appeal to the people", then you get populism rather than truth.

Even if you work out a way that "Professor blah has a higher value opinion than John Smith", this won't always be the case. Sometimes the majority are right, sometimes authority is wrong, sometimes publish views change over time, sometimes truth is hidden for "higher" reasons so I don't really see where we end up.

That said, for things that probably are largely uncontraversial like "a good way to write a prime sieve in Erlang" or something, it's probably going to give a pretty decent response.