Down voting is not necessarily censorship. The platforms choose to censor based on that but I would actually suggest a reform of this using colors or something similar, not by hiding. That would deal with a lot of what you are saying.

The Steem blockchain does not mandate censorship and in fact has a high priority on resisting censorship. In this discussion you should make sure to make this distinction clear!

Down voting is very much required as it allows strong disagreement. Soft disagreement can be handled in comments, etc., but strong disagreement is important, and important it is felt in rewards.

On your first point, I reject the battle, war, fight, and all violent analogies to flagging. It's not person, it does not hurt, it does not cost. I do however recognize that without full understanding it can be shocking and demoralizing, and can be a tool for bullying.

That's one of the reasons I think your second idea is absolutely brilliant. The controversial section. In the mean time a report could be made by a bot to do this, but I would support it's implementation in steemit.com and other front ends.

And remember...