Median-based, stars-out-of-five voting might encourage downvoting, because you can make it clear with your vote that you’re saying “not all that great” rather than “terrible, should be burned”.
Still, there’s a separate exercise in persuading people that thinking “this comment is just trash” doesn’t necessarily mean you’re hopelessly in the grip of confirmation bias. This probably deserves a top-level post of its own.
The hesitation to make a vote that is too strong leads to the lack of voting. So, in the light of my observation about hard/soft voting, I suggest making 4 buttons that explicate the distinction: (--, -, +, ++), where the central buttons correspond to the soft votes, and outside buttons to more aggressive hard votes.
Median-based, stars-out-of-five voting might encourage downvoting, because you can make it clear with your vote that you’re saying “not all that great” rather than “terrible, should be burned”.
Still, there’s a separate exercise in persuading people that thinking “this comment is just trash” doesn’t necessarily mean you’re hopelessly in the grip of confirmation bias. This probably deserves a top-level post of its own.
The hesitation to make a vote that is too strong leads to the lack of voting. So, in the light of my observation about hard/soft voting, I suggest making 4 buttons that explicate the distinction: (--, -, +, ++), where the central buttons correspond to the soft votes, and outside buttons to more aggressive hard votes.