Lemmy

I can get behind this, because upvotes/downvote serve a purpose of telling the website "more people should see this". But we don't need to know what needs to be seen less. Upvotes will, on their own, already tell us what's the top content and sort things out things. Late, Average and Middling posts aren't really going to be seen by most people and are fine with a lesser rating accuracy.

But what about de-constructive comments? What if something TRULY deserves to be seen less? Well, here's a stance I don't particularly believe everyone would get behind but has some merit: People should post their reasoning why their post was not very good as a response. As that not just generates discussion points, but also informs other onlookers of their rationale. And if a response gathers upvotes (ratio'd), then that signals a better message than a simple downvote ever would. Yeah, that means the only response to a troll is actually responding, and that may make a community appear less welcoming, but overall I don't know if that's a big issue in practice.