I enjoyed your article and am thankful that you took the time to write it.

There are certainly problems with the voting system. I use the phrase "voting system" because it's difficult to only focus on downvoting as there are certainly problems with upvoting as well. I don't believe you can have one without the other. I have yet to read an article that compares problems in both areas. It's always, "downvoting is bad" and "it is a form of censorship". I don't see articles about problems with upvoting.

In my activities with the POB tribe, I don't downvote without justification. Also, given opportunity to correct an issue, I'll remove the DV if the author makes a correction. Plagiarism, in most cases, can be easily rectified by the author.

Other platforms, like Blurt, don't use downvotes. However, what they use in its place isn't as transparent as Hive. It could be me, but I just haven't found it yet. Their privacy policy isn't specific about how they operate in this area.

Voting is a topic that will never stop being debated.