I wonder if pg considered this: replacing up/down arrows with such a scale (0-name calling, 1-ad hominem, etc.) to force users to think about what up/down means every time they vote.
That's very similar to Slashdot's moderating system, which I think is great.
Uhg. IMHO there's a reason Digg and Reddit (and it's HN offspring) grew to prominence and it's partly due to Slashdot's confusing and archaic moderating system. I've been visiting for years and still don't fully understand, or care to decode how the system of moderating and nested comments works.