I think the up and down arrows are perfect representations for what they do: "I want people to see this" vs "I don't want people to see this".
The problem is when someone believes that people shouldn't see any opinions that they disagree with. How do you stop them from downvoting substantive content? Personally I don't think changing the icons will help
That implies to me that it is meant to be used for when the rules are broken (like the flag feature as it exists currently). But non-substantive content isn't necessarily rule-breaking
"Basic" isn't necessarily "worse". I always found the voting/moderation on Slashdot to be very confusing and it made me not want to participate on the site.
That's interesting. I was a /. power user back in the day. Sometimes I think about implementing a modern take on slashcode. What about it did you find most confusing?
In my experience on HN, downvoted comments are almost exclusively low-effort, spammy, immature, etc. I'm not sure I've ever noticed an insightful dissenting comment downvoted here.
The problem is when someone believes that people shouldn't see any opinions that they disagree with. How do you stop them from downvoting substantive content? Personally I don't think changing the icons will help