I agree somewhat, but when reddit started the terrain was so much different though, there weren't large groups of people doing organized social attacks on the regular to try and destroy forums. That wasn't really a thing. Now it's mainstreamed and common. So the same system reddit had just doesn't work in today's climate, because too many people are too familiar with how to abuse the downvotes, and they group up to do it. And there's people who work in PR that this is literally their job, to manipulate forums to generate a false consensus to push narratives, or to destroy places of open communication by flooding them with irrational hatred. In 2005, it was just a few trolls having fun. In 2020 it's groups of hundreds of people trying to destroy your forum actively for months on end because they think it's a fun game. These different situations require different approaches to protect the people just trying to actually use the forum.