I use Derpibooru because of the freedom it affords to those who use the site, and the control it gives us to view the site’s content in whatever way we wish. The way the voting system is handled now is the best I’ve seen. And I’ll admit, it’s not perfect, and can be abused, but that’s the price of a free system. Everyone is allowed to use it as they wish, even if it’s not to the overall benefit of the site.
I like the idea of a hide feature and feel it gives an extra dimension to the freedom we’re provided by the current system. See an image that you find repulsive, beyond a simple downvote or comment, and there’s no related tag you can hide without hiding a large amount of genuinely good or personally-pleasing images? Just hide the image itself. In fact, the feature already existed, but was so convoluted and hidden from public view that barely anyone used it.
My preferred system? Keep everything the way it is, but make individual image hiding as visible as upvoting and downvoting. It doesn’t affect the score sum, you get no more notifications from the hidden image, and it makes it so the image effectively doesn’t even exist. It doesn’t change personal filters and the images are in their own little list you can look at, should you make a mistake or if your feelings on an image change. You don’t even have to keep the number of people hiding an image visible. It’s simply another way for us to control the content we see.