Thank you for the response Tiff! Unfortunately I think you're making a mistake in blanket-characterizing downvotes as "disagreement." The practical reality of voting on a platform like this is that votes are functionally just feedback. And without the possibility of giving negative feedback, you're making it so that any negative behaviors large or small (bad-faith argument tactics, spreading misinformation, negativity / debbie-downerism, inappropriateness, click-baiting, reaction-baiting, trolling, hyperbole, off-topicness, just plain rudeness) -- can only get rewarded with upvotes and attention unless mods are constantly policing them to an extreme.

It doesn't matter if negative behaviors get less upvotes and attention than good behaviors, because a) it's usually lower effort and b) any net-positive outcome still reinforces it. Having to report to try to combat it raises the threshold of toxicity needed before most people are willing to "tattle" or "complain", and puts all of the burden on moderators to review every individual report and determine in each instance if the level of badness is enough to warrant removal or banning.

Negative feedback is important to healthy communication too. Downvotes help maintain civility and standards through consensus instead of fiat. Having to remove content that isn't malicious but is inappropriate for the context or goals of a community feels like much more of a "punishment" than downvotes do. That sucks for mods having to do that level of policing if they want a high-quality community, for users who are outspoken / prolific but sometimes need help knowing where the line is, and for community members who end up feeling disenfranchised that it's all up to the mods' judgement, level of effort, and favoritism.

🤷‍♂️ If you're committed to this route, I wish you luck in maintaining / scaling an environment in which downvotes aren't needed. Respectfully, I think it's a bit hubristic, and you might be letting a bias toward Reddit color your thinking too much here; downvoting is not their invention. Regardless, the core issue for me is that if I'm using Reddthat as my home instance, this decision restricts my options across all of lemmy. So I'll be making a switch, but I appreciate your intent and taking the time to consider. All the best.