I completely disagree. Downvotes and upvotes are the entire reason why I come here. They are not perfect but it's a relatively simple way to moderate content. I don't want to see every article submitted to this site or read inane comments. As a niche site there is still a good signal to noise ratio with the discussion here. Generally speaking the community does a good job of policing itself and I can't see how removing the downvote feature will improve anything.

I agree that downvotes are crude so instead of removing them you could improve them. How about when you downvote you have to choose a reason eg: 1. Comment is off-topic 2. Poor argument / source 3. Combatitive / abusive

Side note - there is no internet discourse more eye-rolling than whining about how you can't express an "unpopular" idea. Just say what you want to say - I swear you are significantly less edgy than you think.

Also, you're not allowed to downvote this comment. That would be suppressing my speech and such a chilling effect is disturbing.