Lets be honest here — it always was and will be the “dislike” button.

It wasn’t always like this. It is however like that right now. Sadly.

But you’re right. The “Up” and “Down” part visually strongly suggests that an upvote is the opposite of a downvote. That’s not true if you ask me. Or better phrased: It shouldn’t be like that. Regarding Reddit, you can read the Reddiquette, and it is layed out that up- and down-vote are to be handled differently.

I suggest something like this: Three options for any user with any posts or comment.

• A) Not do anything, and passively flagging the content to be appropriate and on topic.
• B) Mark the content as useful contribution and of high quality, or even simply “I like this!”.
• C) Mark the content as inappropriate or off-topic.

The important part is that A and B have something in common. Both of these are stating that the content is appropriate and fitting to the sub. Only C is stating that you think this content doesn’t belong to the sub, is off-topic or otherwise inappropriate.

B and C shouldn’t be thought of as “opposites”, because they are not. Maybe we could also think of a system where also A is an active marking, but I don’t think there is a need for that to be active, too. I think how I laid it out would work in a way that encourages quality contributions and useful on-topic content.