Taking away (or limiting) people’s ability to vote doesn’t mean they’ll leave more comments. It just makes the sorting less effective at moving the comments that the most people like to the top of the thread.

We have a structural problem, baked into the way the threadiverse works, that makes communities feel more negative and hostile than they are.

That’s just what happens when you federate with tankies. I’m sure the instances that block hexbear, lemmygrad, and .ml are the most peaceful. Not that they’ll be totally free from trolls, but it’s about numbers.