If Voat has taught me anything, its that downvoting can be easily abused. So I like the extra weight that it gets. Voat was trying to take away power from mods. But then places like ProtectVoat were able to organize and aggressively turn other subs into their own echo chambers.

I like whats been suggested here.

I would like to keep it open to discussion though. Give the formula a few months to work out. But always be open to fine tuning it.

I tend to give votes in bursts when I'm on. I'd say if you're going to cap it make it daily instead of hourly. Just my opinion but it's really not a big deal either way.

Is the main objective to combat spam with bots that upvote each other?

I think the square root of level is a bit too low, for example I am pretty active, but it would mean only 4 votes per hour for me. I also think that point 3 is way too low.

But mostly, let's be vary to implement something that lowers actual good user participation. It is easy to lose attention of people who just stop by, they may not return if we limit them too much. I have not seen the need to get this system at all, not much spam so far.

I think a cap on the amount of votes you can have will encourage people to post and comment more. The majority of people that use these kinds of sites do not post or comment regularly. Voat tried to restrict the amount of votes that new users had, which lead to a lot of complaints from new users because they felt like they were left out. By putting every user in the same boat, and using the level system as a way to get upvotes, it will drastically cut down the amount of people voting with alts, and make people feel as though they are working towards getting votes, rather than having them restricted.

There is also the issue of the kind of content that gets heavily upvoted. Popular content is upvoted to All on Reddit and Voat, not good content. Limiting votes is going to make people think twice about what they're going to spend them on, and maybe stop the echo chamber/awful posts trap that is easy to fall into with voting systems.

Downvote Restrictions

They're a bad idea in my opinion. Let people downvote from the start, and make them be the same as upvotes. This is partly because people need to be able to downvote spam, and because of what I said above: it will make people feel like they're being restricted because they don't have something that other users have.

On @Silverbanana's comment

I think the square root of level is a bit too low, for example I am pretty active, but it would mean only 4 votes per hour for me. I also think that point 3 is way too low.

It is very low. Voat still has voting restrictions and I think I can vote around 800 times per day. I have not hit the limit since the first day of using Voat. In my opinion, having it this low will shift the focus of participating in the site away from voting, and more towards content creation or discussion. It will push the site slightly more towards the 4chan method of posting, except the content will stay there forever and we will still have votes to filter/sort content.

It is easy to lose attention of people who just stop by, they may not return if we limit them too much.

I read this comment on Reddit about Phuks the other day, and I downvoted him, but he is actually correct in what he says. At the moment, nothing separates Phuks from Voat or Reddit, other than the fact that Reddit has a ridiculous amount of traffic and Voat is a hive of scum and villainy. I think that by adding these features that do not exist on other sites, we will draw users purely because people are sick to death of the same format on every clone site. I have not seen a single instance of a site that is heavily based around voting that has ended well or made for a good platform for users. We should remove ourselves from that mould.

I wouldn't burden yourself with having to give everyone a badge to DV, that could get crazy quick when this place picks up.

An idea occurred to me.
What about making downvotes worth 0.5, and round up.

Spam, and crap would still sink fast. If a post gets no upvotes it sinks quick. Even at .5

But it would greatly weaken the 'disagree' button. Usually, if votes are mixed, then there is something worth discussing. Even if it is wrong. But often conversation worthy comments get sunk even if they get as many up as down.

I don't think it would have a significant impact on fighting spam and crap. But it would take a lot of power away from the type that try to fight differing views by eliminating them.

It might also make users more willing to speak if they don't have to fear people destroying their phuks taken because they thought differently than the hive.

I'd make a posting limit rate too at 1per hour + (lvl)/2: and max post at 2+(lvl)*2 per day.

A level 15+ club sub. (Still think this is a good idea) Maybe do downvotes regen per hour at (lvl)-5 with cap of (lvl)*2-(15-(lvl)).

That or like PMYA said treat them equally something like a daily of 5+ ((lvl)/2)² or the classic 2^lvl+n.

Maybe remove restrictions with an administrator badge or pillar badge. Pillar badge would be a pillar of the community badge selectively given out to top users lvl20+ not literally hitler, ect. You could attach like a global spam clean up ability to that as well, (which isn't needed now) sort of like Cygnus on voat.

I'd give a slightly bigger cap to #3

I love it. Full support.

That seems like far too little voting.

I'm fine with most of this and heartily agree with the idea that downvotes cost more than upvotes.