I think doing away with the thumbs down voting was a terrible idea. What easier way is there to indicate a disagreement with a post than a simple and quick click of the mouse?

It also points out when someone may be giving bad or incorrect information, indicated by a large number of thumbs down.

I completely fail to see how this was ever a "problem" that needed to be remedied. So now we can all still agree with each other with a thumbs up, but God forbid that we should ever actually show a disagreement with a thumbs down. That would be horrifying.

Kumbaya

"Except that 50% of the time it was just used in juvenile thumbs down wars...face it, the ratings system is like high school bullying when you boil it down for several people on this site. Why not respond with an "I respectfully disagree" and explain why. The nameless, faceless internet creates keyboard commandos puffing up their chests over nonsense. "

That's ridiculous. You really think that giving someone a thumbs down constitutes "bullying?" Or an example of "keyboard commandos puffing up their chests?" A down vote does that? Really? Nameless and faceless? Every down vote was public record, you could see every member who gave a thumbs down.

It's probably the overly sensitive people like you that led to the thumbs down feature being done away with.