I think this is a great idea. While there is no way for us mere redfish/minnows/dolphins to act against misbehaving orca's and whales, witnesses collectively have at least some power to influence and attenuate bad behaviour by orca's and whales (and the rest of us). For something to work however, it is important that there aren't any foxes in the henhouse so to speak. If witnesses themselve act in ways that many of us would qualify as orca's and whales misbehaving, then we can really not expect such witnesses to act in the interest of the platform.
Personally, I feel strongly that whales and orca's running "unmoderated" vote bots are destroying the platform. IMO an unmoderated vote bot is akin to an open mail relay for spammy crap content. Given that at least one of the top witnesses is running an unmoderated vote bot from his own account, I feel strongly this person(s) should have zero business being a witness, so given the posibility to downvote witnesses, I'dd most definetely feel being able to wield a negative democratic right seems like a major missing feature indeed.
good thing about the witness vote is, that one can change it anytime.
And as often as you want.
Or you can split it, as I said yesterday:
Vote bots are here and they will stay. Only another hardork can chase them away.
The other option one has is, to use those unmoderated vote bots for good stuff.
But yeah, this just plays into the pockets of those bot owners :(
I know there is little that can be done about them, but witnesses running them truly sends out the wrong signal IMO. Witnesses IMHO should lead by example. Let me be clear, I don't have any issues with the concept of vote bots or crappy spam producers taking what is offered. The thing I have issues with are bot owners that can't be bothered to do some minimal moderation on the stuff their bot gets used for. Hell, they make a shitload of money from these bots, they could put in a tiny bit of time to weed out the worst content, right? Someone like our #25 witness sure doesn't seem to think so for example. What the hell is someone like that even doing in the top 50? So if anyone makes your point valid about the need for a witness downvote feature, it is witnesses like him.
_