"Downvotes are healthy and important for the ecosystem"
They aren't talking about getting rid of them, so arguing for their validity is pointless. You fell for their strawman argument!
The issue at hand is: Is flagging a comment or post exactly the opposite of upvoting it, and should they be considered opposite sides of the same coin by the site and community?
Arguing that flags/downvotes are healthy is pointless. Nobody is saying otherwise. Literally nobody.
"Literally nobody" -- not true, there are many users that argue for an "upvote only" system.
There are also many users who believe that the ratio between upvotes and downvotes should be high (for examples sake, say 90% upvotes 10% downvotes).
I'm not talking at all about their necessity, that's implied, my argument is that the ratio should be increased and more even for a healthier environment (for examples sake, say 75% upvotes, 25% downvotes). This can be achieved in multiple ways, as I explained above, such as removing the social barrier (UX) as well as the technical opportunity cost (downvote power separation).
Literally nobody in this discussion, anyway. Surely there are people who believe almost every possible thing that can be believed. But nobody in this discussion, or here in the post or comments, has that stance. Arguing against it here is silly, and off-topic.
What do you mean by the ratio between upvotes and flags? How could that be enforced, and why would we want to?
actually there are a few comments here referring to exactly that.. and there always is. As many individuals here don’t understand downvotes and why they are important, which is what anyx was pointing out. 🙂
I wasn't even talking about it until you brought it up.
The ratio of upvotes to downvotes means that, either per-user or in aggregate of the whole system, how often is an upvote used relative to a downvote. If its 100%, then only upvotes are used. If its 90%, then for every 9 upvotes there is on average 1 downvote. And so on.
My opinion and argument in both of my comments is that the number of downvotes, relative to upvotes, should be higher (i.e. more downvotes) as it creates a more healthy ecosystem.
I never talked about enforcing -- it's about incentives (or lack there-of). I strongly encourage you to re-read my comments.