The interesting thing here is not how many people do this but how many of the links that get posted were upvoted by 'friends'. Even if it is only a few people doing it if they are heavy submitters it could materially alter the situation.<p>And if they're 'critical' upvotes I wouldn't have much of a problem with it but if they are upvotes <i>just</i> because your friend wrote whatever then that's really the 'road to digg'.<p>From my own research I can see we are still quite a few 'yes' votes short.