Yes, I noticed that too. It seems to happen most frequently to me shortly after getting into political discussions (in a broad sense that includes e.g. questions of race and gender). The obvious hypotheses are (1) the quality of my comments goes way down when I post about politics, (2) there are trigger-happy downvoters out there of various political leanings, and (3) there are, more specifically, trigger-happy downvoters whose political leanings are opposed to mine. #1 might be true but (as you remark) the downvoting seems to be quite indiscriminate and to affect comments I can see no reasonable objection to. #2 and #3 are both fairly plausible but the clearest-but particular cases of mass-downvoting we’ve had happen to be from a neoreactionary, favouring #3. (And of course my political opponents are, as such, Objectively Evil and therefore that’s just the sort of thing they would do.)
My policy when I notice this sort of thing is to post more. Posting a comment has positive expected karma for me even when I’m being mass-downvoted, and my interpretation of mass-downvoting is that it’s meant to be intimidatory; for those who can afford it, the best response to attempted intimidation is to refuse to be intimidated.
For what it’s worth, I think those comments of yours were probably downvoted “honestly”—by which I mean not that I agree with the downvoters, but that I think each comment was downvoted by someone who specifically didn’t like that comment, rather than by someone who disliked something else you’d written and wanted to punish you harder than they could by downvoting just the thing they didn’t like.
(I do have the impression—to which your examples are relevant—that left-leaning comments get downvoted by right-leaning users here more often than the other way around, even though we have rather more left-leaning than right-leaning users. I don’t trust that impression very much since it’s easy to see how it could be wrong.)
Frequency is variable. Every few months, perhaps. I haven’t noticed multiple people (or sockpuppets) doing it concurrently—each downvoted comment just gets −1.
Yes, I noticed that too. It seems to happen most frequently to me shortly after getting into political discussions (in a broad sense that includes e.g. questions of race and gender). The obvious hypotheses are (1) the quality of my comments goes way down when I post about politics, (2) there are trigger-happy downvoters out there of various political leanings, and (3) there are, more specifically, trigger-happy downvoters whose political leanings are opposed to mine. #1 might be true but (as you remark) the downvoting seems to be quite indiscriminate and to affect comments I can see no reasonable objection to. #2 and #3 are both fairly plausible but the clearest-but particular cases of mass-downvoting we’ve had happen to be from a neoreactionary, favouring #3. (And of course my political opponents are, as such, Objectively Evil and therefore that’s just the sort of thing they would do.)
My policy when I notice this sort of thing is to post more. Posting a comment has positive expected karma for me even when I’m being mass-downvoted, and my interpretation of mass-downvoting is that it’s meant to be intimidatory; for those who can afford it, the best response to attempted intimidation is to refuse to be intimidated.
I got a −1 for posting in the same discussion here, which suggests 3). I also got a −1 for answering a question that specifically asked to explain criticism, and lost a lot of karma for [trying to defend an opinion which is popular in the outside world but is unpopular here. (I got modded down for most of that, it’s just that several of them were counterbalanced by people moderating up. The last ones did not have anyone moderating them up and left me in the negatives.)
For what it’s worth, I think those comments of yours were probably downvoted “honestly”—by which I mean not that I agree with the downvoters, but that I think each comment was downvoted by someone who specifically didn’t like that comment, rather than by someone who disliked something else you’d written and wanted to punish you harder than they could by downvoting just the thing they didn’t like.
(I do have the impression—to which your examples are relevant—that left-leaning comments get downvoted by right-leaning users here more often than the other way around, even though we have rather more left-leaning than right-leaning users. I don’t trust that impression very much since it’s easy to see how it could be wrong.)
You didn’t defend an opinion. You just stated an opinion.
Does it happen that often? Is it, like in this case, −1? Or more negative tallies?
That’s the spirit!
I post harder. I take downvotes as a sign that there are readers are in need of my gentle tutelage. So many crosses to bear.
Frequency is variable. Every few months, perhaps. I haven’t noticed multiple people (or sockpuppets) doing it concurrently—each downvoted comment just gets −1.