+ Upvotes could encourage more comments as it's nice to know your comments are appreciated
+ Upvotes stop the spam of "Agreed" posts - Although technically, this is against the rules anyway.
-  Upvotes could cause a decline in detailed "Agreed" responses as there's no reason to think out a response when you can just slap a like on the post.

I didn't really consider that receiving an upvote on a forum comment could encourage more posting.

So it seems like

+ Upvotes could encourage more comments as it's nice to know your comments are appreciated
+ Upvotes stop the spam of "Agreed" posts - Although technically, this is against the rules anyway.
-  Upvotes could cause a decline in detailed "Agreed" responses as there's no reason to think out a response when you can just slap a like on the post.

I've done the 3rd a lot...It has made me a bit lazier, I don't know about everyone else. There's been multiple times in this very thread where I've almost just slapped a like on a comment and moved on but for the purposes of this thread I've told myself I should respond, I wouldn't really do that in other threads, I'll be like "That's a good post, I agree with it, maybe I should write a response...Nah I'll just like it and go do something else"

But if the former two are stronger than it's worth keeping, I wouldn't touch the forum upvotes at this stage as it needs a more detailed breakdown.

Thats not true. Everyone wants them to be removed across threads you see people complaining about the broken down vote system that VGChartz has.

The only people who have posted in here to keep the down votes is people who have supporter status and clearly they are not going to want change.

But something is going to have to change as the system is just broke and giving supporters twice the voice or more of none supporters with such a small pool of active users is clearly a broken system and this site is one of the only ones that seems to have this system in place.

I think if a mod can remove the vote count from the top and have the people voting for it to be kept to have to post in this thread would be much better and a much clearer picture as i bet the amount of posts from users for it to be removed will far out number the clone accounts thats clearly manipulating the pull.

Its clear something is going to change and instead of you guys being so against it maybe give answers to how it can be fixed like VAMatt has been doing.

He is the only supporter in this thread that i have not seen give their own childish comments or cry about it being removed etc and instead has been trying to give his opinion on how it should be fixed.

That's a shame and exactly my worry, I don't consider you or Zkup to be trolls who make crappy posts, quite the opposite, your posts are often detailed and thought out but we have you both claiming to have received downvote barrages in the past which have pushed you away from commenting, I don't see how this issue gets better, I see it getting worse, downvotes weaponised more and good users discouraged from posting.

I'll say again, the chances of someone not posting anymore because they were downvote bombed is hugely higher than someone deciding to not comment anymore because they lost downvoting power, it's a weigh up of which is hurting the site more and I believe downvotes are.

I also agree, I'm not sure why downvoting isn't an option in the main forums, I also don't understand why there's a difference in policy, it does make no sense, I've asked why in this thread multiple times and nobody else seems to know why there should be a difference either, not that I would want downvoting in forums, I think that would be awful but I think that's what most others would think too, so why the difference?

I'd be fully in favour of making downvotes and upvotes not anonymous anymore.

I have rarely seen meaningful discussion in the comments on articles.  Normally I see shallow opinion and by shallow I mean not well supported. People don't typically write half a page worth of response in support of their view in the comment section.  The default sorting option is by popularity.  Simply put I don't see it as in depth discussion.

I can't speak for the others, but on my part, I've noticed on several occasions a chance for proper discussion, yet I've refrained from even properly starting because the moment you say something enough people might disagree about is the moment you heavily risk getting downvoted - and often if there's substance for a proper discussion, there's also room for disagreement because otherwise there wouldn't necessarily be much to really discuss about. Why would I invest in a proper comment when it has a high risk of getting downvoted to oblivion? That, and articles get buried quickly enough for discussions to get buried as well, and I feel the tree structure of the comment sections also helps bury discussions. For a proper discussion, a traditional forum thread is more suitable due to its greater persistence even without the downvotes, but I can personally say that the downvotes don't help either.

In a way, comment sections feel like Twitter: They're suitable for witty and likeable comments that don't go to any great depth, but they're a poor forum for proper discussions.

Bolded, very well put and it mirrors my own opinion of the comment section of articles.  Lord knows if there is enough meat for a discussion someone should be creating a thread.  For the record I liked your comment and still replied take that @Ryuu96.