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> Same thing applies to things like Yelp reviews. Maybe a user with close to a 5-star lifetime rating average should have his reviews "renormalized" to 3's because his standards are probably just lower than the guy with a 1-star average.

Another problem is the perception of star ratings. It seems like 5 (maybe 4 also) is the only "positive" rating for many people. Anything less and it might as well be a 1.

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Of course, there's many areas that I didn't even mention. Another thing in the same vein for upvotes that I sometimes think about is, what is the meaning of upvoting? Does it mean, "I like this," or can it also mean "I think this submission should be higher?" Maybe I think too much but I've refrained from upvoting posts I like because I don't think they should be higher than their current position.

Can the design tell the user the meaning of upvote("I like this" / "I think this submission should be higher")? Because the significance of upvote could be either of the two depending on the area. Also, then one can sort accordingly.

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