> The advantage of this system is that nobody gets downvoted, but at a steep cost: we’ve lost half the potential information. A Mr. Claude Shannon would like a

> The advantage of this system is that nobody gets downvoted, but at a steep cost: we’ve lost half the potential information. A Mr. Claude Shannon would like a word. I joke, but when you have controls on voting rings and co-ordination, downvotes are necessarily noisier. An upvote is effectively neutral engagement with the content, where a downvote actively reduces engagement. From the perspective of wanting to mine the constructive engagement out of the collective minds of the audience, downvotes are about as meaningful and information dense as a fire alarm.