bb - no, it's not hard.  look at the top people.  you'll notice the same ones commenting on each other's stuff, and even (probably) on yours.  i know  i have.  they leave one liners that praise your work, and they do it on a mammoth number of images.  then those people turn around and give them comments.  more than just gaming, it's the polite thing to do if someone has taken the time to  comment on your image.  if you do that on a massive scale, you get popular.   some people do it because they want to game, and some do it because they just like being part of the big warm fuzzy (this is a community site).

linkdink - i personally wasn't suggesting it to stop gaming.  stopping gaming would be easy:  get rid of ratings, get rid of most commented, get rid of highest rated, get rid of most viewed, and get rid of art charts.  if anything, do it like JPG magazine and count votes or ratings but don't show the score and only use it to inform a selection of images chosen by staff.

i don't see them making those changes.  if they wanted to stop the gaming they wouldn't have banned doc legume for making it obvious how easy it was to game the hot 20.  i certainly don't feel fit to determine whether it's healthy or unhealthy for the community to reward the behavior that generates popularity, but if the ptb thought it was bad, they would have eliminated it a long time ago.

the one star method is to make the whole thing simpler.  and give a more realistic count.  i think the comments part is unnecessary, because it just makes people post comments redundant to their rating like "great image!" or "love it!"  that don't say any more than the rating. they just take up space for no reason.  and those of us who don't like leaving an impersonal comment but don't have the time can't rate some of the things we like.