It also escapes me as to why it took 2 years to do something... a cynical sort might imagine that recent website censorship has them spooked - hence the willingness to foster a healthier range of opinions.
As I see it, the only way to "allow unpopular opinions while preventing comment spam" is to either remove the voting system entirely, basically turning the site into an imageboard, or get a new batch of users...
I don't think removing the voting system entirely is necessary. I put in my two cents here. As for the users, I guess time will tell. If they implement something fair I think it's clearly going to take a while until the culture improves, if it ever does. Fortunately that leaves a niche for phuks once the perfect new website design goes live and you hit the big-time.
I like the reply you got on that comment. Pretty much sums up the attitude there. No attempt was made to address anything you said, you were just discredited for being a user someone doesn't like.
A couple of things about this are strange to me. It has been 2 years or so since the @she saga, and it was clear then that the restriction system had its problems after her account was basically rendered useless within a couple of days. They did fix that somewhat with the 7 day limit on voting, so people can't go back through someone's profile and totally screw them. It is bizarre though that there would be a sudden 180 on this - at the time the entire site including the admins was all for shutting her down, no concerns were raised.
As I see it, the only way to "allow unpopular opinions while preventing comment spam" is to either remove the voting system entirely, basically turning the site into an imageboard, or get a new batch of users that don't attempt to shut people down at every opportunity. The users are so biased at this point that nobody with differing opinions will even want to use the site anymore, because as an aggregator there is just no content there for them anymore that they would be interested in.
This problem was only made worse when people started to strip the rules on subs, mostly the defaults. They are so anti-moderation that they've created the opposite of the problem that exists on Reddit.