I’m not sure how much it would help, but that’s mainly because I am both not troubled by voting up things I disagree with or voting down things I disagree with and because I have a history of leaving constructive feedback comments, especially in cases where I feel like a comment/post is being treated overly harshly or where the author seems unfamiliar with community norms. I can imagine that others who are less willing to do that might be more willing to leave reacts that at least convey some of that information.
A related concept to all of this is the idea of adding more react-like functionality to comments. See my thoughts here: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/EQJfdqSaMcJyR5k73/habryka-s-shortform-feed#HefgGrp3nMwf5gKkd
Do you have a sense of how much this would solve the problems you are worried about?
I’m not sure how much it would help, but that’s mainly because I am both not troubled by voting up things I disagree with or voting down things I disagree with and because I have a history of leaving constructive feedback comments, especially in cases where I feel like a comment/post is being treated overly harshly or where the author seems unfamiliar with community norms. I can imagine that others who are less willing to do that might be more willing to leave reacts that at least convey some of that information.
I think whatever plan addresses the situation definitely needs to address that most people are much more lazy than you in this regard.