It might happen that folks downvote things even if they like it, just because its the only interaction possible. From what little I understand of content reception, the drive to interact triumphs the drive to curate/(give your opinion for the collective good, for the lack of a better word).

In a few weeks the website would then introduce a ‘controversial’ or ‘worst’ sorting and ironic downvoting would become mainstream till the devs give in and treat the downvote as an upvote, or introduce both downvote and upvote (wherein imo they’d stand a chance of losing their userbase).

Someone once told me

    an intense sense of wanting to be involved
    and a staggering lack of something to add

I don't think that would work, because it is hard to imagine anything that somebody wouldn't dislike. You see it on Youtube, where even a video getting hundreds/thousands of likes gets a few dozen downvotes.

That’s basically Wikipedia minus the most downvoted view part.

My guess is that will bring to the top the most uninteresting stuff that novody even cares about to downvote. Also this might look like the new section as eventually someone will downvote so the new ones will be at the top in the first phase.

Sounds like r/RoastMe.