But you can also use upvotes maliciously too; if one had several low-level accounts that upvoted anything on a main account, it's just as bad as votebots downvoting someone else.

In addition, there's times where a downvote is not being used maliciously; one example is to help prevent flames and derogatory posts from the site. In this case, the voter that helps to downvote and invoke nodereaper is doing the site a favor, and should not be punished for it.

I don't think that beyond trying to find votebots and remove them, there's much that can be done to improve the downvoting problem. At least, through modification of the moderation system without hurting other parts of it that already work well.

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Dr. Michael K. Neylon - mneylon-pm@masemware.com || "You've left the lens cap of your mind on again, Pinky" - The Brain