I like the idea of Downvotes. The principle was a good one but it neglected to consider that people, on the whole, don’t look at vote buttons as up vote = relevant content downvote = irrelevant (their original intention, essentially crowdsourcing moderation / content quality control). Rather they look at them as agree / disagree, like / dislike.

I’m the end I think they hurt the conversation. People can just downvote with ease instead of having to put the effort in the say something, leaving that space for those who had a strong enough drive to be snippy or nasty to full it.

Upvote only still allows a mark of quality / relevance from the community without making it so divisive.