I strongly encourage this discussion, because at the end it's up to the users - the community - to decide how to use those tools. I think that we have an opportunity here to embrace new custom, and leave what was on reddit on reddit.
but I would argue that the quality argument is flawed in my opinion. upvote and downvote are more used as agreement / disagreement markers.
so if you agree with content, I can understand that you just want to use the upvote (who really is a favorite here in the fediverse) to let the poster know that their content had a positive impact on yourself. I'm cool with that and it's also good to avoid "+1" or "^^^^this" comments. But maybe it shouldn't be displayed (every upvote downvote boosts are public in the fediverse, anyone can have access to this info it's how ActivityPub works for now, just go to more>activity). Favorites are not that public on other platform, I guess only people from the same server are seeing it, or people you follow, I'm not sure about that.
but the downvote mechanism, who could imply a disagreement, is problematic to me. Because we should feel free to specify why we are in a disagreement. They can be so much reason for that and only a conversation, an exchange of thought can help us understand each other.
a simple click on the downvote button is more like a "shut up" for me. Not a really great way to express ourself, to express disagreement. And it's also too healthy in my opinion.
So yes the strongest issue with this mechanism is how it contribute to encourage a single discourse, a single point of view and tend to discourage users with other point of view to engage. It's really problematic for me.
Whats the magic word? ( media.kbin.social )
NEW: Update & Clarification on Votes, Boosts, Favorites, and Reputation Points on kbin ( kbin.social )
Ernest just posted some comments clarifying recent changes to Votes, Boosts, Favorites, and Reputation Points....