I realize that there have been similar discussions going on for years (I've found complaints as far back as 2012), and it seems like it is a good time to bring it up again and ask about the rationale for the skew towards negativity in Area 51.
People are only allowed 5 positive votes on questions, but they could technically saddle a proposal with 30 negative votes per day. I'm sure it doesn't affect every proposal, but it can have a huge impact on proposals where a few people decide for whatever reason that they don't want something to see the light of day. James Jenkins complained about this in 2014 when he asked, Can one person derail a site proposal on Area51?
I have not seen anyone adequately address why negative votes are virtually unlimited when positive votes are so tightly rationed. Can you imagine a war in which one army gets 5 bullets per soldier and the other gets an unlimited supply? It wouldn't even be close to a fair fight. We also do not have access to the vote totals, so we can't tell if many positive votes are getting cancelled out by a few people's negative ones. One person could wipe out 6 people's votes in one day.
The purpose of the example questions is to help determine the scope of the proposed site. That function is completely distorted by people voting questions down without explanation perhaps just because they want to keep the site from advancing out of the definition phase. Ideally, every down vote should be accompanied by a justification, which would help serve the intended purpose.
Animuson, a staff/moderator on Meta.SE, recently informed us that plans are underway for a very different process for creating new sites. I am asking if there is anything that can be done in the meantime to make the process more fair, such as limiting the amount of down votes to 5 per person as well and allowing the vote totals to be seen so we can get a better picture of the true interest in the proposal?