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The thing is that without downvotes, there aren't actually that many barriers to joining in. If someone has a problem with something you say, they have to actually say so, instead of just downvoting, which is what often happens on Reddit. And I think this is better because it forces negative reward to be associated with feedback, so that people who either have misunderstandings or are poor articulators of their views can get better over time. The worst thing is getting downvoted without knowing why. I don't know if this has been tried anywhere, but maybe a system where every vote would necessitate a comment would work better, so that why a remark was received a particular way by the community would be well understood.