Thats a good point to highlight. If the purpose of down votes is to guide discussion away from uninteresting or counterproductive paths, then it also scoops up

Thats a good point to highlight. If the purpose of down votes is to guide discussion away from uninteresting or counterproductive paths, then it also scoops up divisive comments. I suppose divisive comments are potentially disruptive if they are particularly flamey. But it seems like they deserve to be distinguished from more objectively negative comments. If the raw up/downs were exposed it would be interesting to experiment with this in the front end.