[noxToken]

Downvoting can also have a snowball effect. If someone disagrees with you, especially in a contested topic where it's opinion or unclear who is correct, downvotes signal other people to also downvote. You can see the effect on Reddit.

Comments that hit -1 can still recover. Comments rarely recover after -3 or so. The only counter is for the commenter to edit and call out readers for frivolous downvoting.

[bena]

I have a comment on reddit that was both downvoted to nearly -100 and was given gold. I was given the award because the actual information I gave was correct. Which someone mentioned in a reply. It was downvoted because no one liked the answer.

[listenallyall]

There is definitely a phenomenon where truthful/factual but "inconvenient" comments are much more vigorously downvoted than false, inaccurate or incorrect ones.

[DoreenMichele]

Well, you have my respect. Standing on a thing you know to be correct that gets that much open dislike is not an easy thing to do. Most people likely would have deleted the correct but hated answer long before it accumulated that many downvotes.

[bena]

The only posts I delete are when the site goes weird and it double or triple posts.

I never delete posts simply because they are unpopular. In my personal view, that's a coward's move. It tells me that the user doesn't really have any actual conviction, doesn't really believe in what they're saying. If being popular is more important to that person than being correct, then I find their opinion worthless. Because apparently it can be dictated by popular opinion. And I mean actually correct, not just "winning the argument".

I also dislike people who double reply or who use the edit feature to essentially pull an "and another thing". Living out the l'esprit d'escalier fantasy essentially.

Also people who proclaim they won't be responding or tell others not to respond. It's a poor rhetorical tactic to silence opposition because you don't have a good response.

[DoreenMichele]

Some people are more vulnerable than others or have reasons other than the downvotes per se for a deletion. For example, r/homeless seems to see a lot of deletions due to the extreme vulnerability of the population.

Still, kudos for standing by an unpopular but correct statement in that instance. And kudos to the person who gave you gold for it.

[robocat]

> The only counter is for the commenter to edit and call out readers for frivolous downvoting.

That usually earns a downvote from me. People commenting on downvotes is boring and usually shows a lack of insight, for example obviously making zero effort to understand why their comment is poorly received, or blaming a conspiracy, or blaming groupthink. I have occasionally answered “why the downvotes” questions, but it usually feels like a waste of my time to do so.