Someone posts a repetitive / boring / rambling thread.
Downvotes are a bit nasty. Reporting the thread may not be warranted.
What if there was a Meh/Zero/Boring vote. It wouldn’t subtract rep from the person posting. Instead, it would subtract time from the thread. Each Meh vote would turn back the “last post” clock by 1 hours, pushing it lower in the queue. (Only one meh vote per thread per person)
Devs / Moderators might subtract 12 hours with a Meh vote.
With such a tool, posts that are mostly just noise would get Meh’d off the front page quickly, without the necessity of downvotes.
