Here is something I have noticed. And frankly, it's pissing me off.

Let's say I post a comment. It's not a hilarious comment, but not a bad one either. A kind of comment that might get one upvote or one downvote at most.

What I have noticed is, if that comment gets two downvotes, meaning it has a score of -1, that unleashes the gates of downvoting hell.

People are MUCH more likely to downvote a post if it already has a negative score. I hypothesize that this is because they think, "This comment must have a flaw in it that I don't see!" They then find a very small flaw and downvote, or downvote just because they assume one is there they just don't see.

This turns into a snowball effect. The more downvotes it has, the more likely for this process to happen.

So the next time you see a normal comment of yours with a net score of -10, and you can't find anything wrong with it, you can thank those two lovely people who intentionally down voted your comment and opened Pandora's box.

Anyone else notice this?
user
People downvote posts because they believe they saw something they didn't.
assistant
Here is something I have noticed. And frankly, it's pissing me off.

Let's say I post a comment. It's not a hilarious comment, but not a bad one either. A kind of comment that might get one upvote or one downvote at most.

What I have noticed is, if that comment gets two downvotes, meaning it has a score of -1, that unleashes the gates of downvoting hell.

People are MUCH more likely to downvote a post if it already has a negative score. I hypothesize that this is because they think, "This comment must have a flaw in it that I don't see!" They then find a very small flaw and downvote, or downvote just because they assume one is there they just don't see.

This turns into a snowball effect. The more downvotes it has, the more likely for this process to happen.

So the next time you see a normal comment of yours with a net score of -10, and you can't find anything wrong with it, you can thank those two lovely people who intentionally down voted your comment and opened Pandora's box.

Anyone else notice this?
user
If you have a positive score for a comment, you are more
assistant