Thanks I’ll have to take a look. Although algorithmic solutions are good until bad actors figure out how to use the algo to their advantage (brigading/engagement farming etc). Reddits up/down vote concept is nice within the context of subs I like and want the better content moved to the top, but on the global feed, it’s merely the popular stance of those viewing that content and therefore discourse is hard because you can get downvoted to death even with a valid question/point. There is no good answer so I appreciate the effort to start somewhere! 

 Thank you for your detailed perspective.

I believe a general robust 'show me popular content' solution is TrustRank, similar to PageRank that Google successfully uses for the decades-old open ecosystem, which is Web. 

If you add your following list, then you could get 'popular content people I follow engaged with', which is kinda what Twitter does.

With regards to a genuine question being downvoted by the crowd - that seems hard, need to think on that.