[aaronarduino]

If either intended or not intended, talking about the downvoting system seems unnecessarily taboo(gets downvoted). Which is a shame because there is an interesting effect that it has on the community which would be worth looking into.

One of the biggest questions I have: are downvotes an accurate way to moderate low-quality comments? I'm not sure how that can be proved by data but it would be interesting to see someone prove it.

[digi_owl]

I find myself thinking of the Slashdot system (also used by Soylentnews, a Slashdot "spinoff"), where people get to "flag" a certain number of comments on an article they themselves have not participated in. And said flags can never lift the post above +5 or send it below -1, but the most common flag given to a comment is represented next to the score.