alt Hacker NewsA word of unsolicited advice: HNers are a prickly lot and will downvote without explanation because you stepped on some unknowable pet peeve of theirs that probably nobody else in the world shares. This happens all the time but you likely only notice when you happen to get downvoted before any upvotes and end up at 0 or -1. If your comment is reasonable, it will usually come back up.
But complaining about downvotes will certainly earn more of them.
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Don’t forget the old “downvote the other comments so mine goes to the top “ trick.
All your best stuff will get downvoted by at least somebody eventually. For some reason, that somebody always gets in early enough that you notice.
I don't think that's certain at all. What affects votes is:
1. Being near the top of the page
2. Having a downvote already
You can curtail the bandwagon effect by complaining.
I quite often upvote comments I disagree with that have been downvoted for no apparent reason. Sometimes I vouch for flagged comments for the same reason too. That said, the last one I vouched for was flagged again and so were all the commentor's other comments.