Thumbs down is toxic, but a convenient way to indicate that an MR should not be merged

I recently rejected an MR by writing a comment containing technical reasons for rejecting the MR, and using the thumbs-down emoji.

Using the thumbs down emoji is a convenient way to say "no" to a merge request. Unlike a comment, it appears at the top of an MR so I can immediately see when others also don't approve without having to read the comments.

Despite my technical critique of the patch in the comment, the person was personally hurt and quite upset that I used the thumbs down. That person indicated that using thumbs down is a sign of toxic culture. That's not the image that I want to project. I spoke with several other people and they also agreed that a thumbs down is extreme and should not be used. They said that thumbs up and thumbs down are not opposites: whereas thumbs up means good enough, thumbs down means I hate this, get out of here.

Based on this feedback, we are no longer using the thumbs down emoji. It would be nice to have a different mechanism for indicating: "this MR has issues". A simple solution might be to have a second button next to the "Approve" button, "Still Has Issues" or to change the thumbs-down emoji to something less toxic.