My issue with the downvotes is that it is regularly brigaded even if it's not an organized effort. Legit contributions get shouted down to being hidden while other non helpful or downright dangerous info is kept above it. On reddit with the smaller subs it doesn't matter especially when it's a post because it's still going to show in the sub. And while lemmy/fediverse is still small and growing, this will most definitely push plenty of people (likely me included) to not be as active because the majority of people don't seem to be capable of having a real conversation and instead just downvote and move on.

The one thing lemmy and the fediverse has going for it is not having karma attached to your account so you don't have people looking for upvotes for legitimacy and you don't have downvote troll farmers who see how far negative they can get.

I could also see keeping the up/down and total so long as it's hidden (but accessible to those that want to see it). I'd also be okay if downvoting enough of a specific accounts comments or posts automatically hid it from you (without blocking them completely).

And to make my point even clearer. Multiple someones have been going through my comment history and downvoting everything they can. The only ones they haven't are probably the ones that the post was deleted so while I can see my comment, I can't see any responses or the ones I responded to. And lemmy doesn't do that random bullshit that reddit does so I know they are real.

And even more on the nose here. I'm sure this addendum will sound like I am crying to a few or more of the drive by downvoters here and will bring in an onslaught of downvotes because as you already brought up, way too many people don't take the time to think about what they are reading and just react silently or by responding as if they are a 3rd grader bullying a toddler on the playground, likely because no one loves them enough (because they are hell to be around).

I'll get ahead of it. Bring on the downvotes mfers.