We need to have upvotes and downvotes shown independently. That way we can tell if something is controversial or just bad.
I've opened a topic about this recently.
http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/9kh/meta_karma_its_positive_and_negative_component
For I am very controversial guy as far as I know and I want this to be visible.
Then I saw, it has been suggested earlier. Probably more than once. Shouldn't be impossible, since you can already sort the posts by "Controversial". Keep some pressure in this direction!
One day, someone not a member of the Singularity Institute (and has publically stated that they don't believe in the necessity of ensuring all AI is Friendly) manages to build an AI. It promptly undergoes an intelligence explosion and sends kill-bots to massacre the vast majority of the upper echelons of the US Federal Government, both civilian and military. Or maybe forcibly upload them; it's sort of difficult for untrained meat-bags like the people running the media to tell. It claims, in a press release, that its calculations indicate that the optimal outcome for humanity is achieved by removing corruption from the US Government, and this is the best way to do this.
What do you do?