Upvote/Downvote System — A net positive?

I’m curious about the developers and users opinions regarding the way Diggs are related to the upvote and downvote system, and whether or not the existence of this voting feature is ultimately detrimental to the longterm health of the platform. To start this conversation, I will share my own thoughts.

My perception is that people interested in upvotes (or afraid of downvotes) inevitably end up catering to the ideas and content that will garner that kind of approval, while avoiding expressions that could be considered dissent. This in the long run unfortunately ends up reflected as community hiveminds that dissuade challenging discussions, since upvoting is reduced to cheerleading and works as a way for a user to share their opinion without having to write anything down. This outcome effectively reduces interactions long term.

With a name like Digg, a long comment chain full of people concurring with an idea (or challenging it) seems much more visually synonymous with the concept of “Digging” than simply having the delta of up/down votes be the crux of this concept and platform.

A possible remedy to this would be to not have an upvote/downvote system altogether, but rather have Diggs be an interest and interaction indicator. After all, the idiom “I dig it” mainly transmits the idea of comprehension and appreciation. For example: instead of voting buttons, they can be replaced with one “Digg” button that transmits the aforementioned ideas and works to push up a particular post because you want more people to see it and interact in the conversation you’re enjoying. This makes more sense than the most Dugg post being one that, let’s say in a conversation about food, more people agree with, since this doesn’t push the conversation forward in any significant way.

Other indirect ways to contribute to the Digg tally could be: opening up their thread, replying to their post with a comment, how many people interact with that comment altogether (if other methods of interacting get added along the way).

These ideas also harmonize well with the current concept of gems, since being among the first to participate in a conversation that takes off well means you contributed to that happening. In that sense, the gem makes sense. Way better than simply being rewarded for upvoting something early, since that doesn’t require much contribution at all.

While I understand some people feel good about making posts and comments that amass upvotes, that system only pushes consensus instead of conversation, which could be a contributing factor for how Digg’s immediate competitor ended up the way it did.

Anyway, that’s my take on things as someone that has only been here for about a week. I’m interested in my fellow diggers ideas and thoughts regarding this point of view. After all, we’re still in beta — the time for polishing ideas is now.