With like/dislike and flag, you could restrict them from replying or voting on replies which they flagged. Meaning they cannot argue with someone they just flagged, if they want to argue all they can do is "dislike" (which is how dislike SHOULD be used).
There will always be issues with anything like voting, but it's an interesting approach.
HN also stops you from downvoting someone who replies to you, I think, which is another good idea.
One of the common complaints around here are about "anonymous downvoters", since the other user is often left wondering why they were downvoted. Should we enforce this as a rule?
It's not that most of the people are rational and self-critical - many people think that their personal opinions are right and others are nonsense :)
You can't design system on the assumption that people are rational.
Further, I believe the GP was referring to HN, which has, like reddit, a one-dimensional voting system (for the most part).
In any case, I'm much more hesitant to down vote here just because I disagree with an opinion than on Reddit, and I think a lot of people do the same. To me, that higher standard for what's both considered a good comment and what's acceptable are what makes HN more useful for interesting discussion. There are probably 5-8 aspects of comments that could be voted on, but what we see with these singular rating systems is that the community forms around what is acceptable and what is not, and people generally fall in line with the community norms (both in submissions and in their own rating of others). Reddit is interesting in that I've noticed that this community norm is somewhat malleable based on the subreddit. /r/gifs and /r/programming have a distinctly different feel in the comments.
I don't think any of this sentence is true. Getting [dead]ed was an experiment a long time ago which afaict ended quickly. And bans for non-spam-related reasons are obviously quite public.
You aren't supposed to up/downvote something because you like or dislike it. According to Reddiquette:
"If you think something contributes to conversation, upvote it. If you think it does not contribute to the subreddit it is posted in or is off-topic in a particular community, downvote it."
I always considered "bad"==flag, no?
So you get these incredibly articulate replies which move the conversation forward but people "dislike" so wind up hidden with -5. Which is treated no differently to pure trolling and nonsense.
I can name another website with that same issue...
A like/dislike system is fine. But you need three buttons, like/dislike, and "bad." No amount of dislikes should ever make a comment hidden or punish the account, that's what "bad" or "flag" should be for.
Heck even the karma total on Reddit encourages an echo chamber, effectively reinforcing the idea that downvotes are "bad" and you have less "worth" with less of them.