We've been discussing about changing the voting system and make it as follows:
- Everybody can give a limited amount of phuks ("votes")
- Each user gets sqrt(LEVEL) "votes" per hour
- A user can have up to LEVEL+10 "votes"
- Nobody can downvote until X condition is met and a certain badge is given
- A downvote would cost the same as two upvotes
An example: I'm level 15, so I get 3 votes per hour and I can have up to 25 votes at any time. It takes 9 hours to get 25 votes at 3/hr, so if in those 9 hours I spend my 25 votes, I can still get more for the rest of the day (at 3/hr, up to 72 per day, being level 15).
I agree on many of your points, but not this one:
Too much abuse. The sockpuppets were at times more active on Voat than legit users. And that was with restrictions.
I can only imagine the shitshow that would result from brand new accounts being able to downvoat. The restrictions also re-enforce that they shouldn't be taken lightly.
Spam doesn't need many downvoats. A few is all it takes to drop it out of visibility, so I don't think downvoat restrictions will have a negative effect on spam.