Make downvotes invisible
This mostly applies to all the harshly-downvoted concept posts, but I think it'd help the boards feel less toxic:
I propose that downvotes still do the same thing, but you can't downvote a post below 0. If a post has 5 upvotes and 20 downvotes, 0. If it has 20 upvotes and 5 downvotes, 15.
People that downvote without commenting aren't adding to the discussion. If a post is bad enough to deserve a wave of downvotes, it should probably be reported instead.
Edit: In response to the idea of requiring downvotes to leave a comment, that's solving the wrong problem. Yes, it's too easy to downvote without caring about the content. But the problem is with the idea of downvotes on these boards. People's original ideas and honest opinions get endlessly downvoted, making the value of a negatively-scored post completely indecipherable. Meanwhile, posts with a lot of upvotes can be content-less troll posts or posts designed to incite arguing. There's no point in publicly displaying a number correlated to the amount of times people have clicked one of two arrows as if it represents that post's value.