On that note though, upvoting people doesn't damage anyone's reputation/standing in the community/progress towards goals set for one self. You're correct, I think, in saying:
Are we as a community supposed to be coming to a consensus as to whether something contributes or doesn't? What kind of a comment could possibly be so ambiguously relevant that it would have competing upvotes and downvotes? Either something is offtopic/spam or it isn't.
Even discussion posts, ANY DISCUSSION POST expression or analysis or whatever other kind of category you'd like to stick a discussion post into inherently adds to a conversation because it is beginning a conversation. You can't pushing people for taking the first step and getting people to talk about something. Also inherently broken. If we were to strip upvotes/downvotes for anything it should be discussions.
I like this. Report a problem rather than just down voting. Reddit now has a "report abuse" button and a list of problems a post might be causing. I think this is a good idea.
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