Yes, it is. The downvoting button is used more and more to silence those who voice dissenting opinions, something for which I can only assume it was not intende

Yes, it is. The downvoting button is used more and more to silence those who voice dissenting opinions, something for which I can only assume it was not intended and for which it is ill suited. Either move to a moderation system in the lines of that used by the Slashdot of old - where posts could be tagged as interesting, insightful, flame bait and other categories - and give the reader the choice how to act on the negative labels (grey out, hide below a certain threshold, etc) or get rid of the thing and just keep the 'upvote' button. Add a 'report' button to weed out obvious spam posts but don't just grey out or hide marked posts as this will end up causing the same problems as the downvote button does. META: An alternative to this might be to add a meta-moderation system but that has its own share of problems which could be fixed by adding a meta-meta-moderation system; GOTO META Elsewhere in this thread someone mentioned that downvoting supposedly was meant to be used to indicate dissent while discussing downvotes is explicitly frowned upon. While I agree with the latter I assume the former is incorrect. If the downvote button actually was meant to indicate dissent it might as well be relabelled as the 'Nomenklatura button' as it has the same stifling effect on the community: voicing a dissenting opinion can get you silenced without a chance to discuss.