Every thing you suggested has glaringly obvious flaws, "unintended circumstances" as you call it but squared. Think, everything gets 2, 3, or n times more complex in order to, what? Outwit someone determined enough to respond as they do, poignantly put by being a jerk? All the while, now downvoting got even more tasking, because who doesn't love to take out the trash all the time all for the far off promise of having a better community, except now the flag police will get you if you're not big enough or gosh help you if you're bigger.
It comes down to this:
You don't think that good stake can win vs bad stake when it comes to retaining or onboaring users, and that somehow, with more rules or whatever, the good can win.
I think that the good outweighs the bad so much so that it was never a chance for bad to win, immemorial loser underdogs.
Agreed... everything that I suggested would have unintended consequences... glaring obvious depends on the perspective.....
However, it would be incredibly naive to think that the status quo doesn't also have some unintended consequences as well... things sort of work as they are, but is that due to a stable situation and inventives that can scale up (which I believe that you think?) or is it due to the fact that at the moment we are tiny and the effects of good actors can match the bad as it is all relatively easy to keep track of (as I think...).
I'm not against downvoting as a concept and I'm not advocating a flag police either. However, I do believe the mere principle of no consequence actions is not really something that should exist in an adult society (or even a child one!).
No, I think good stake can win... as long as it always remains "good"... however, this is like having a benevolent dictator... it is good, until it is bad. I don't think there should be more rules or anything like that as such... I think that there should be a risk and consequence for actions like upvoting and downvoting... instead of free (rc doesn't count, as that is essentially unlimited), as freedom from cost and consequences has not played out well in the financial sectors of modern times! Crash the economy, who goes to jail? Who gets bailed out? Who loses their jobs? Who gets the golden handshake? We don't want to re-create the idea of consequence free hazards... or do we?
Um, I think you've confused my suggestion with someone else's. I agreed with them about it being an interesting idea but one that I didn't think would work due to the points that you also said. However, I answered so many replies I might well have accidentally agreed to the wrong thing by accident. Anyway, my position on requiring a post of comment to upvote or downvote is exactly the end as yours.
My suggestion was that up/down voting gave some sort of cost... Perhaps proportional to the amount of vests that would be allocated. However, this would mean that downvotes cost disproportionately more as there would not be any 'anti-curation' rewards. But I think that these actions shouldn't be effectively cost free.
Edit: Yup, definitely my fault! Apologies. I had answered without making myself clear. I think I had made those points (same as yours) in a different thread... Somewhere.