I think zero time should be devoted to solutions for excessive downvoting of old material. Rather, the mods and other de facto leaders ought to devote their time to finding ways to reinvigorate LW with new interesting content.
I would like see a resurgence of interesting content myself, but that isn't the same thing as giving up on maintenance.
Anyone here can work on interesting content. Do you have any ideas for encouraging it?
I've gotten sufficient evidence from support that voiceofra has been doing retributive downvoting. I've banned them without prior notice because I'm not giving them more chances to downvote.
I'm thinking of something like not letting anyone give more than 5 downvotes/week for content which is more than a month old. The numbers and the time period are tentative-- this isn't my ideal rule. This is probably technically possible. However, my impression is that highly specific rules like that are an invitation to gaming the rules.
I would rather just make spiteful down-voting impossible (or maybe make it expensive) rather than trying to find out who's doing it. Admittedly, putting up barriers to downvoting for past comments doesn't solve the problem of people who down-vote everything, but at least people who downvote current material are easier to notice.
Any thoughts about technical solutions to excessive down-voting of past material?