I was there, I saw the thread. @TheDude, did you? It was pretty strongly in favour. Do we really need to keep waiting around to see if an instance administrated by a guy who wants to declare “cis” a slur is going to turn out okay?
https://sh.itjust.works/post/216888 for context.
My impression is that a lot of the new users from the reddit influx explicitly use downvotes as a way to signal their disagreement with an opinion. As a result, several instances have disabled downvotes to shield themselves from this unwanted internet culture. There have also been working proof of concepts of articifial downvote bots, using such tools would be in line with the reddit culture as I’ve experienced it.
It at least seems to somewhat be the actual intended use in Lemmy’s case. Being from that recent wave of new users, I’ll confess thinking that Lemmy could do away with the vote system entirely; on Reddit, it always annoyed me to see, say, a well-written opinion about a piece of media being buried at the bottom of the page just for going against the grain.
That’s how the system technically works, not the rules on my instance.