I disagree if the downvotes are fully transparent - meaning anyone can see who is doing the downvoting. Part of the reason people feel comfortable running around and “dogpile reporting” users on a platform like Twitter is there is absolutely no trail - you can gang up on people to try to get them banned and no one will ever even know you did it. That’s part of why that happens in the first place bc there aren’t social consequences for that “tribal tyranny” - it’s all covert and hidden. That’s also why the worst notes here are in the replies where they are partially hidden/nested.
In the scenario of downvoting, no one would get banned, but the OP would have options inside the client to limit their own view of heavily-downvoted replies. For example, if someone replies “you fat ugly slut” on a note of someone I follow, I’d like to be able to downvote that and keep it out of their mentions entirely unless they choose to go see the trash. It’s like the web-of-trust idea. Imagine women in a bar together and some drunk guy starts bothering one of them. What will they do? They’ll unite to get their friend away from the harasser.
The idea that we are only allowed to approve, ignore, or avoid yet cannot simply disapprove without comment is a really weird facet of social media if you think about it. nostr:note1u8n53g0vuvaqpaku8fj7rlmk3edzhxnxpxe3kqdpsqkswup6gqssn30vqg