I thought a lot about this lately, and I think one of the easiest ways to make it more fun it to disable the visibility of downvotes.
I don't think it should be necessary for Steemit and the other frontends to show the downvotes a user received. Since most users on this platform actually don't understands why downvotes are important (and they are essential to balance the reward pool) we should simply not show the regular joe that he got any downvotes. Just show who upvoted you and how much money your post is currently making.
I would argue that we should remove how much an article made, the number of likes/dislikes etc.
These are some of the social proof "tactics" that don't really add much to the platform but do add to the anxiety.
Make it simple, allow anyone to upvote/downvote but only showing them to the author. Currently when someone stars downvoting everyone starts.
I agree, the value should be a less central aspect of the post (maybe it could be hidden for the normal user). And who up/downvoted a certain content should not be displayed on the frontend at all.