Voting for this poll ended in a tie between Yes, leave it as is and just count votes, positive or negative and No, comments with negative vote counts should not be considered for top comments.

I know I'm late to the party (of one) but the way things are at the moment I personally find it useful to have negative votes count. The comments are being flagged as rubbish, and I like to read that rubbish and judge it for myself.

If it were things like spam getting downvoted then obviously it would be better if it didn't count.