Some Lemmy instances (e.g. Beehaw) do not support down votes for whatever reason. When an instance does support down votes, authors often get zero feedback with the down votes, which ultimately supports a communities of haters. I’ve noticed some communities struggle to get content because of some malicious down voters who just down vote every post to discourage activity and effectively sabotage the community.
The fix:
An instance admin should be able to flip a switch that requires every down vote to collect a 1-line rationale from the voter. These one-liners should be visible to everyone on a separate page. Upvotes do not need raionale.
Perhaps overkill, but it might be useful if a moderator can cancel or suppress uncivil down votes.
Are you saying down votes do not affect timeline positioning and folding?