Upvote/Downvote System for Posts/Submissions and Comments

This is a very interesting idea! I see some potential abuse for a feature like that, but I'll git it an upvote to see where this will go.

Maybe the upvote/downvote thing could be extended by actually rating the content? Like, give five stars if you love what you see, or only three if you just like it, or something like a negative star if you dislike something? Of course this could also fire the wrong direction! Imagine you're new to the site, post something, and only receive downvotes. A feature to tell someone you don't like something can easily become a dangerous weapon to insult and harass people. To include something like that should be weighed carefully!

There's a reason the star system has been phased out of most websites.

As for posting something new and only receiving downvotes, there would probably be a reason that they'd receive downvotes, as I doubt people will go out of their way to single out new users and downvote them. As I said in my reply to Star Seer, votes should be public to mods/admins so they can see any potential abuse and take action, similar to Reddit, which has rules against downvote spamming users and such.

SoFurry has a vote system, and people hate it. It's too easily abused, just like how most places that have such a system suffer from downvote trolls and people who want to disrupt those they have a grudge against.

If someone can figure out a good method to stop vote abuse, I'd be for implementing such a system, but for now, I'd stay away from supporting it.

For stopping abuse, downvotes and upvotes should be public to mods/admins, and downvote spamming a specific user should show up as a red flag. Punishment for that can be as simple as removing all of that person's votes and suspending their voting privileges. Reddit and Imgur have vote systems that work well.

I do not like a vote system for artwork with up/down votes. It can cause quite a lot of turmoil. I don't think that an art site should have a system that can be so Discouraging to comment. "What if I write something someone happens to not like?" "What if someone doesn't like my critique?" That may stop people from ever writing anything that might actually be a good critique or comment. If one doesn't like a comment on artwork, it could just be deleted by the artist.

As for Downvoting artwork, WHY would you want to downvote artwork? That's saying "Your art isn't good/good enough." It's Discouraging as ever to have someone say "Your art is Shit." or "I don't agree with your art." Not only that, but art is one of those things where not everyone will like the subject, theme, style, medium. Art is more of a taste. Like food. Some people like burgers with a butt ton of awkward toppings and onion rings on it, and others like plain ketchup and cheese.

Faving, promoting, Encouragement to continue, to keep going, to keep improving by people who want to see more of your work. Not to be struck with shame for drawing something a group of people who don't even like your work downvoted.

I've looked through the comments here, and I tend to agree that it would likely cause problems rather than help. For Furry Network, the great majority of content is created by the users on the site. Downvoting tends to go against the community aspect of the site and opens up the possibility that specific users could be attacked.

The favorite/promote system in place works by allowing users to show appreciation for the various submissions. Getting feedback about submissions is important, but we'd like to keep things positive when possible.