HN used to have this problem in a big way years ago, where somebody would say something challenging to the group think and everybody would just dump all over the comment and "downvote the comment to oblivion". I think at some point pg put a cap on negative comment scores at -5 or something, so the point that this "this is an unpopular comment" got across, but didn't drain a user's karma by -100 or whatever.
I've also found that groups of downvotes can happen at different times during a comment's lifecycle. There's no clear pattern, but I've had comments get a bunch of downvotes early on right after the post, then a few hours later end up in clearly positive territory. I think the limit on downvotes saved the comment, it probably would have ended up in double or triple digit downvote territory during the period of time when people were piling on, but the hard limit prevented an irretrievable negative downward spiral.
I also find myself far less concerned about people piling on downvotes, because it might change and end back up in positive territory (and if it doesn't my karma isn't annihilated because I happened to be a bad mood at the moment I posted something).
I also think that not showing scores has helped a lot with breaking negative cycles (as well as breaking overly positive cycles). It infuriated lots of old users when it was instituted, but I've observed that it appears that echo chamber style group think has broken here and that "famous names" don't just get to the top of a comment tree for posting an offhand comment like they did when scores were being shown. Almost immediately, the mix of people at the top of the comments for a topic started to become more interesting and varied.
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HN used to have this problem in a big way years ago, where somebody would say something challenging to the group think and everybody would just dump all over the comment and "downvote the comment to oblivion". I think at some point pg put a cap on negative comment scores at -5 or something, so the point that this "this is an unpopular comment" got across, but didn't drain a user's karma by -100 or whatever.
I've also found that groups of downvotes can happen at different times during a comment's lifecycle. There's no clear pattern, but I've had comments get a bunch of downvotes early on right after the post, then a few hours later end up in clearly positive territory. I think the limit on downvotes saved the comment, it probably would have ended up in double or triple digit downvote territory during the period of time when people were piling on, but the hard limit prevented an irretrievable negative downward spiral.
I also find myself far less concerned about people piling on downvotes, because it might change and end back up in positive territory (and if it doesn't my karma isn't annihilated because I happened to be a bad mood at the moment I posted something).
I also think that not showing scores has helped a lot with breaking negative cycles (as well as breaking overly positive cycles). It infuriated lots of old users when it was instituted, but I've observed that it appears that echo chamber style group think has broken here and that "famous names" don't just get to the top of a comment tree for posting an offhand comment like they did when scores were being shown. Almost immediately, the mix of people at the top of the comments for a topic started to become more interesting and varied.