It's courageous to take the stance of addressing the taboo around downvoting. Indeed downvoting should be used as liberally as upvoting: as a mean to steer the plateform in the right direction.
Another thing that would be even more effective would be to soften the payout algorithm to use a function that grows less fast. Currently, payout growth is quadratic. This is the reason why there is no middle ground between a good payout and a ridiculously excessive payout.
Interesting. Perhaps you or @rok-sivante could add to the comments in my "Minnow's Code of Conduct" post from this morning. I suggested that we (minnows) not use it as an 'I disagree' button but called out my lack of knowledge on the user base's overall consensus.
It being a flag (as opposed to a thumbs down) made me view it as something to be used cautiously.
It's true that the flag is setting some particular context that becomes difficult to ignore afterwards. The choice of using a flag was meant to discourage the type of vote brigading that we find on Reddit. The Bitcoin blocksize debate with wars between /r/btc and /r/bitcoin where opposing views were systematically downvoted into oblivion participated to the creation of echo chambers. We want to avoid this kind of thing happening here, but we may not have to do anything to prevent it because of the economic incentive stake holders have to ensure that the platform remains an enjoyable and user friendly space, which implies that downvoting should be done wisely.
I never used Reddit and wasn't privy to the Bitcoin block size debate, yet I follow. I appreciate the explanation. Down voting has a cost.
However some users will not be motivated by pure economics.
This is true. The assumption is that a user who holds a lot of stake is likely to have either invested (which normally implies some level of understanding of long term economic incentives) or received the stake as a reward for posting good content or curating (which implies that the user is relatively constructive, intelligent, sociable and not a complete troll). Although this isn't exact science and there will certainly be many stakeholders who will use downvoting unwisely in spite of the fact it reflects negatively on their investment. But it is expected (hoped?) that such stakeholders will not be collectively holding a large amount of stake.
"Currently, payout growth is quadratic. This is the reason why there is no middle ground between a good payout and a ridiculously excessive payout."
This is because the only votes that matter are whale votes currently. It's not the algorithm, it's the distribution of SP that's the issue. Obv there could be ways to curb this, but that's not seemingly being addressed. That's the real issue.