I think Skyreal and others has some really good suggestions here. I’d like to offer a couple of addendums though:

1. To make things easier when awarding additional submissions in a limited submission scenario, set a threshold upvote number that scales with the total number of votes cast and time till the end of submissions. If an idea exceeds that threshold number, then the owner of the idea has one of their submission slots freed up for an additional submission.

2. While the ideas suggested for how to handle downvoting abuse are innovative, there is a method that hasn’t been suggested which might be easier to implement. Maintain the current method of removing votes from the general voting when their score gets to low, but instead of outright deleting the idea, put it into a separate category (call it “pwned ideas” ) that players can browse if they so choose. Players may choose to upvote ideas in this category, but no further downvotes can happen. If a threshold number of upvotes is achieved, then the idea is put back into the general voting list again. This will help recover from spam downvoting by certain klans, and allow players to self-police the submissions themselves.

3. Award scoops at then end of the week, instead of as votes acgreat timesulate. This will help mollify scoop farming by klans, and hopefully make it less attractive to earn scoops via klan mbum-voting.