First of all, I'm glad someone who is far more technical than I has given it a look and some feedback, thank you! :D

Secondly, yes I know that it could be something potentially undesired to have it baked into the base layer to override downvote bars. I think the conversation is important though because there is a lot of room to be desired with the current system of down votes. It's why I felt the important need to put my ideas on paper and waiting for some feedback.

I think that your banner idea for WHY someone is on a blacklist or downvote list is really important. That would go a long way to improve the communication in terms of it. A lot of people get added to a list sadly, without much consideration of the negative wider implications of that and how it looks. To someone who isn't well-versed in Hive, it's politics and workings, seeing the downvotes is certainly a turn off especially because there is minimal or no explanation provided at all and it's DEFINITELY not easily apparent to someone like a banner would be.

I think this is exactly why I wrote the post though, to just get a discussion started. We can morph the ideas as things go along but a deeper conversation around them I think is really important for the health of the platform.

EDIT - you have just given me some inspiration to a follow-up to this based on your comment, so thank you!!