I'm not really sure I understand what downvoting is useful for. The site rules say to blacklist and move on if you see something you don't like, so being able to downvote seems counterintuitive to that. And it isn't for flagging MS Paint doodles or stolen artwork obviously that's what the report button it for. And a downvote doesn't provide any constructve criticism if there is something off about someone's art. So what point is there to being able to downvote?

easy single click button for saying "this sucks"

also vote count can be used for searching, blacklisting etc

You know, people really need to get over downvoting. If you can't handle negative feedback, you're not going to do very well in real life. A downvote is just an expression of someone's opinion, and people need to accept it and move on.

Man, opinions sure suck, don't they?

Don't you just want to live in a lifeless, safe vacuum?

CCoyote said:
You know, people really need to get over downvoting. If you can't handle negative feedback, you're not going to do very well in real life. A downvote is just an expression of someone's opinion, and people need to accept it and move on.

Sure, negative feedback is great! That's why I said downvotes aren't good for constructive criticism. If you really feel the need to give your opinion to everything that offends your sensibilities then you're not going to do very well in real life.

NdG_Crimson said:
Sure, negative feedback is great! That's why I said downvotes aren't good for constructive criticism. If you really feel the need to give your opinion to everything that offends your sensibilities then you're not going to do very well in real life.

You're absolutely welcome to turn my words back on me and ignore my point without even hearing it. However, I don't foresee the downvote going away, and I think most users of the site find it to be a useful tool.

I'm sorry that bothers you.

CCoyote said:
You're absolutely welcome to turn my words back on me and ignore my point without even hearing it. However, I don't foresee the downvote going away, and I think most users of the site find it to be a useful tool.

I'm sorry that bothers you.

Your point was that downvoting was a means of expressing an opinion, I'm saying it isn't really, at least not a very good or helpful one. See what I'm doing here is expressing an opinion and giving feedback about the downvote system. So it's kind of ironic that you're incapbable of handling my opinion.

NdG_Crimson said:
Your point was that downvoting was a means of expressing an opinion, I'm saying it isn't really, at least not a very good or helpful one. See what I'm doing here is expressing an opinion and giving feedback about the downvote system. So it's kind of ironic that you're incapbable of handling my opinion.

Actually, you're accusing me of a response I haven't had, and you're being belligerent and sarcastic in the way you're doing it.

For comments, downvotes serve as a way of user curated quality control with the option to disable it entirely or change the threshold.
If someone says something stupid or is creepy, they get downvoted and are no longer seen unless the user chooses to see low rated comments.

For posts, while I wish it were used only to rate content based on quality, a lot of users will downvotes fetish art, some even disable their blacklist to do so.
This is heavily frowned upon, but we do not do anything about this unless the user uses multiple accounts.

Downvotes have been asked to be removed before, in all cases the answer is and always will be no.
Not to say we won't change stuff regarding votes in the future(eg: show only upvoted), but not saying we will either.

NdG_Crimson said:
Your point was that downvoting was a means of expressing an opinion, I'm saying it isn't really, at least not a very good or helpful one. See what I'm doing here is expressing an opinion and giving feedback about the downvote system. So it's kind of ironic that you're incapbable of handling my opinion.

People are not required to give you constructive criticism. If their opinion is "This sucks" than that is their every right. You do not have a right to demand they express their opinions in a "useful" format, nor do you have the right to demand they explain their reason for their opinions to you.
In the same vein people are allowed to downvote without having to explain or justify themselves to you or anyone else.

Edit: Actually, I'm just going to lock this, we already had 2 similar threads in the last two weeks. Feel free to continue the thread here.