[Kovah]

Like counts, be it likes alone or Reddit-style with downvotes, is the wrong mechanic for community-generated content, as it incentivises posting something "for a quick like". As explained in my other reply, Slashdot has a really healthy, decade-old community without having like counts. Posts are ranked by comment count and if there is something really bad, users can report it. It's that easy and it works.

[lumenwrites]

Wouldn't comment counts incentivize controversy-inducing content instead?

[doodlesdev]

That's how I feel about it, it's essentially the way stuff is incentivized on 4chan, and we all know that community isn't really know for its high quality, friendly discourse...