I honestly don't know why thumb down let alone thumb up buttons were invented, all they do is cause mob mentality for both, especially when you can't see the results of either.
The old system Disqus had originally showed you who up and down voted you, the more that downvoted you the more you knew about those users and how they acted, you could even easily point them out to mods to sort out but even then that caused more bad blood.
What should happen is most sites/forums should either totally do away with both thumb ups and downs or start showing the people doing them, either one solves the same issue since not having them means people actually have to talk and the other would show who it was and cause the effect to be spoken to, I'd have the thumb up/down removed imo since it primarily feeds mob mentality and gang ups.
The one thing I don't think you could stop in terms of mob mentality on here are when 3-6 people verbally gang up on you, like people that don't read quote trees to see an argument has clearly ended but another 3 more people decide to jump in and carry it on when they weren't even a part of the debate.
Mankind, in its arrogance and self-delusion, must believe they are the mirrors to God in both their image and their power. If something shatters that mirror, then it must be totally destroyed.
