I sometimes too want to express my appreciation for something with more than just an upvote, but find myself without anything insightful to say. The current solution is to get an "yes, it's ok to just upvote" counseling, but I sometimes wonder if there isn't something to improve there.
Upvotes signal everything from "it's a great idea!", through "oh, cool", to "headline looks interesting, I want to save that for later reading". On the other hand, since posting "it's great" doesn't seem like much of a contribution, even the best ideas (or Show HNs) end up having lots of criticism in comments here, despite that most HNers may actually really like it. A way to signal "it's a great idea" besides upvotes could correct the comment bias.
(3) A subject's "newsworthiness" is measured by the sum of upvotes and downvotes (i.e. 5 upvotes and 5 downvotes = 10 newsworthy points)
(4) A subject gets buried by measuring the square of the difference between downvotes and upvotes, divided by total votes squared (i.e. 5 downvotes and 1 upvote has a newsworthy score of 6, but it will have a "bury" score of (5-1)^2 / 6^2. This would only apply to subjects with more downvotes than upvotes.
Currently, upvotes end up being a mixture of "positive sentiment" and "newsworthy" -- there needs to be a method of distinction between those.
