Currently downvotes are enabled on a trial basis, this was done by me to see if they can be enabled to prevent spam from rising to the top of communities, along with the fact that is another form of interaction/feedback.
However I've gotten some pushback for this and so I'd like to see the general consensus of this decision. Please put any comments/concerns in this thread, and please vote here:
(Link gone poll is done)
the results of this poll and the comments will determine if we keep or remove downvotes again
I can see a lot of pros and cons, and I don't think we can know what is best without a longer-term trial. There'll be some trolling and harassment that comes with it, which is really bad, but also it allows user filtering of spam and junk posts, which is good. Hopefully there's less of the former and more of the latter.