General discussion threads, sure - ‘up’ = ‘good content’, ‘down’ = ‘irrelevant’. Irrelevant could be because it’s not to do with the matter at hand, it could be hateful, trollish, whatever.
Post asking for a specific fact, like in ye olde askahistorian? Up = correct, down = incorrect. Doesn’t matter how well written or how good the intent is, downvoting for disinformation.
One of the things that Slashdot got right was being able to upvote / downvote with a reason. (Perhaps only being able to upvote / downvote occasionally too, which stops brigading.) Made it possible to filter on why things were good, save ruining your fake internet points when you were mistaken about something as opposed to being an arsehole.