I was originally thinking of leaving the up arrow and just making (-) be there for "down vote". My go-to instinct was for a "off topic" and I thought of a dash, but your idea of + and x makes a lot of sense and the visual appearance of it is....pleasant.
To me, if I was a new user and didn't know about what the buttons did, it would feel like an "add content" button and "remove content" button. I think all buttons with the "plus" icon should be reserved for adding content and not "up voting" something.
I was originally thinking of leaving the up arrow and just making (-) be there for "down vote". My go-to instinct was for a "off topic" and I thought of a dash, but your idea of + and x makes a lot of sense and the visual appearance of it is....pleasant.
To me, if I was a new user and didn't know about what the buttons did, it would feel like an "add content" button and "remove content" button. I think all buttons with the "plus" icon should be reserved for adding content and not "up voting" something.