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Why remove downvoting directly? I'm not against the idea, I just want to understand the thinking. I wonder if the problem is the binary nature of so many things. 5 star/1 star reviews are the most common, we have up and down votes, but no real context for that. I wonder if the problem that needs to be solved isn't context, rather than directional. This is me spitballing, so feel free to IGNORE everything below. I was listening to the Freakonomics podcast on proper voting (e.g. elections) the other day - this one: link - and there was an idea called quadratic voting. link Anyway, the idea is that we all get X votes, and we can vote more on some things, e.g. if we REALLY want marijuana legal, I can vote 4 votes. The twist is that the cost of extra votes is the square of the number of votes, 2 costs 4, 3 costs 9 (we all get maths works). The theory is this lets people vote on what they care about, much less than simply voting equally. I was wondering there isn't some way to create a system where you earn votes, that you can spend in some similar way, e.g. you "earn" upvotes from others, and can spend them elsewhere. If everyone got a single vote, but you earned extra votes you could spend in interesting ways at increasing cost, e.g. you could heavily downvote an idea at an exponential rate, it might make people less a victim of common denominator views, give fringe views more airtime, and make people consider a vote more deeply. Not just yes/no but how much do I hate/love th
