[hilbert42]

FYI, my comment above typifies the issue. It currently stands at zero votes but I saw it as high as +3 not long after posting. It's anyone's guess how many voted for and against.

When votes oscillate around zero I take it that my comment is pretty neutral, essentially a statement of fact. Shooting the messenger is a well-known phenomenon.

Incidentally, something I've noted is that I'll often get downvoted days after the main activity stops. Vote stats therefore should be timestamped. It occurred to me HN could do an analysis of voters together with their actual posts. Anonymous stats like that could tell us much about why Social Media is in such a mess.