And what do you expect in such a small community as, for example, the Polish community? Since this community had maybe 200 active people at the time, and it was hard to find a given person more than 5-6 blogs that publish content that really interests you, and to this you add the fact that not everyone publishes something every day, what kind of content do you think you will be voting for over and over again if not for the ones that interest you from people you like and whose work you support?
What's more, usually when you like someone's content, it is most often the case that this person also likes your content because you have common views. You don't have to discover that the sun is shining here to figure out that in small communities "circle voting" is created naturally and not because of the desire to drain the pool.
In abstraction, there are millions of users on Facebook, but when you post, very often your friends like you and you like your friends.