[patorjk]

I would actually speculate that it's the opposite. Though not exactly the same, 2 of my 3 most upvoted comments on reddit (465 and 510 votes) contain edits where I ask about why I'm getting downvoted. As soon as I added that question in, the voting seemed to switch directions. It's like people took a second more to think about the comment rather than just acting on emotion. I think that's why the saying has survived and you see it so often. Obviously this is just anecdotal, but I think there's some neat psychology happening when someone brings up upvotes/downvotes. It'd be interesting to do an analysis to see how those words effect a comment's score.

Edit: Just realized that the parent of the comment I'm replying to is the top comment on this post, so that's another piece of anecdotal evidence.

[kelnos]

For what you've described, I agree: if you write a post, get downvotes, and then add an edit wondering about the downvotes because you're genuine about your position and are looking to engage, people tend to start engaging in kind and upvote you at least to neutral.

But I think the parent is talking about the habit of many who are about to post a counter-groupthink or controversial opinion to lead off with "I know I'm going to get downvoted for this, but...". My feeling there is that people generally view that as a sort of flippant disregard/dismissal of the community moderation process, so it basically _invites_ downvotes.