While I admire the sentiment, I think that trying to discourage superfluous downvotes is doomed to failure. Even if you could get all of the regular site users to agree with this, there's still the matter of impressing that value onto new users. It's only natural to view the downvote button as an "anti-upvote". If upvote = I agree / I like this, then downvote = I disagree / I don't like this. To advocate anything else is to go against human nature and is an uphill battle for sure.
I think instead of upvote / downvote we should have a thumbs-up and a report button. Reporting carries a lot more weight than downvoting, because you know a human is going to see it, and you might have to justify your dislike.
While I admire the sentiment, I think that trying to discourage superfluous downvotes is doomed to failure. Even if you could get all of the regular site users to agree with this, there's still the matter of impressing that value onto new users. It's only natural to view the downvote button as an "anti-upvote". If upvote = I agree / I like this, then downvote = I disagree / I don't like this. To advocate anything else is to go against human nature and is an uphill battle for sure.
I think instead of upvote / downvote we should have a thumbs-up and a report button. Reporting carries a lot more weight than downvoting, because you know a human is going to see it, and you might have to justify your dislike.