I'm torn about them. I understand their intended role and, in some cases, they prove necessary, as opposed to direct moderation (censor). On the emotional side, people will always like upvotes and hate downvotes and take them personally or blow them out of proportion when they are received. At the same time, downvotes are abused too, and since downvotes are free (at least a few) and upvotes are not, not many people jump to protect those unjustly becoming targets of downvote bullies. I would make them cost voting mana again, and maybe find a way to be rewarded as well somehow. But maybe I would do it with a DHF proposal, to be able to exclude from receiving rewards abusers of downvotes. Or to vote in/out the proposal as needed.
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If downvotes are used only to fight abuse, I think that they are necessary but unfortunately it's not always the case. If you downvote people without giving them the reason, how can they improve their behaviour?
I agree. I believe this should be "fixed" on the front-end side. Instead of a downvote button, there should be a "downvote and explain", much like a normal comment, except it would be comment+downvote. I guess someone could still manually still make a downvote only through the front ends if they leave the comment box empty.
That would be a great idea to implement I belive.
3 credits added for the liotes ranking