I’m guessing at least some downvotes on the post are primarily disapproving of the rule that prohibits downvoting of the post. I would be surprised if any significant number of people would be driven by something that could be described as “disapproving of you as a person” (I’m not sure what this even means).
So they are disobeying the rule because the rule (or rather, the request to follow the rule) exists? If the OP hadn’t requested that people not downvote the main post, they wouldn’t have downvoted it as much?
In general, requests to not downvote are akin to “don’t register your disapproval of this.” I think most people generally disprove of requests to not register disapproval. Particularly because such requests are (likely) correlated with sub-par content.
That said, I think neutral karma discussions are an interesting idea. Trying to shield the OP itself from downvotes was a mistake.
One thing that worries me is whether the downvotes are disapproving to the topic, or to myself as a person?.
I’m guessing at least some downvotes on the post are primarily disapproving of the rule that prohibits downvoting of the post. I would be surprised if any significant number of people would be driven by something that could be described as “disapproving of you as a person” (I’m not sure what this even means).
So they are disobeying the rule because the rule (or rather, the request to follow the rule) exists? If the OP hadn’t requested that people not downvote the main post, they wouldn’t have downvoted it as much?
In general, requests to not downvote are akin to “don’t register your disapproval of this.” I think most people generally disprove of requests to not register disapproval. Particularly because such requests are (likely) correlated with sub-par content.
That said, I think neutral karma discussions are an interesting idea. Trying to shield the OP itself from downvotes was a mistake.