I would rather remove the downvote button altogether. If the comment violates the rules, flag it. Otherwise it's just an offer for misuse. As is apparently flagging, why else would someone flag this post?
Upvotes don't help either, they're basically meaningless. If anything they need to remove upvotes so the effect of downvoting is even stronger.
Reddit is mostly an example for what happens when rules and moderators are bad.
Unfortunately it isn't the 1990s anymore. The internet is a sewer of bots and slop and rancid toxicity. You can't expect people to be civil anymore, or even sane. Just the baseline of common decency requires aggressive gatekeeping and moderation, and preferably keeping a community small and hostile to outsiders. I kind of hate it, it's elitist, but the alternative is everything turning into 4chan.
Why would you then trust them with a downvote or flagging button?
> If lobste.rs wasn't invite only and didn't have the invitation tree
Maybe, maybe not. We don't have the evidence. Anyway, it's easy to get an invitation.
Because at least a downvote is silent. Without a downvote that energy just bleeds into more argumentative and off-topic discussion.
The problem is people complaining about downvotes. People need to just accept them as the cost of doing business here and move on. Complaining is only going to get you downvoted more.
That will happen anyway.
> People need to just accept them as the cost of doing business here and move on
As they apparently must accept comments, but the latter at least have a clear author, even if hidden behind a pseudonym in most cases. By the end of the day, the quality of the forum seems to depend on the quality and presence of the moderators.