Ian:
A few rebuttals are in order:
You PRESUME that MORE people will vote low for malicious reasons. Help me out with this -- but where did you get your Kreskin-like ability to make such a definitive statement?
There are honest people who will weigh in with lower numbers - simply for the merits / lack thereof for a number of courses that have previously basked in the sunshine of previous ratings. Under your assumption if one were to apply this to college football -- the "name" schools would never lose their place in line.
With all due respect, your role, as I see it, is to GATHER info -- not GATHER AND THEN FURTHER EDIT. Once you start down that path then no matter how sincere the intentions -- which I believe yours to be -- will be fraught with all the questions I have mentioned.
Ian, you assume that everything must be fine because people have not spoken out. That's a wonderful assumption -- again -- on your part. Sacred cow courses get a tremendous assist in consensus findings because it is these courses which are generally played more frequently and as a result will get more votes -- no doubt, not all of them will be of equal value -- but the attention they do get is far more than those courses that are not as "sacred" because they have not been played as much -- this specifically pertains to courses that are fairly new or off the beaten track.
Ian, let me reiterate the point made previously on the issue of "voter equality."
It's nice to presume such a thing but people who have played wide smattering of courses have a greater portfolio to determine how specific point totals will be given.
A person who has played 50 courses -- may in fact really believe a few of the courses he has played merit an 8 or 9 total -- but that comes only from the 50 or so courses he has played. Someone who has played 1,000 would be a much better position to better understand where the real 8's and 9's actually apply.
No doubt there's a noble desire to be egalitarian in such enterprises but it's fatally flawed for the reasons that different voters are exactly that ...
Different.
Years back Digest did such a thing with its state / regional raters and those at the national level. It made sense -- although the national panel was too closely aligned with "star" people (e.g. Joe Dey, Bill Campbell, Tom Watson, et al) who only reaffirmed the same grouping of courses time after time after time. Part of that reason was because so few of the national panel bothered because of a host of reasons to sample courses outside the usual pecking order ot courses they are most familiar with.
No doubt this poll is different but I wanted to post -- not to teardown -- but to illustrate that my comments are no different than others who have said as much for many years. An individualized list from truly someone or a group of well traveled and well seasoned raters would make for an interesting counterpoint to whatever findings you produce.