A good number of arguements for and against question downvotes being [free are here][1], and i'd like to not re-visit these arguments. 

Rather than that, i'd like to show what *my* voting patterns are like.

![enter image description here][2]

So, roughly I upvote 5 times as often as i downvote (and i sure as hell need to vote more)

However, the detailed statistics paint a slightly different picture.

![enter image description here][3]

86 of these 146 votes were for things that were deleted or closed. 

On the other hand i have 240 moderator flags of which 228 are helpful, and 830 revisions (a good chunk of it might be retags, admittedly). 

*High rep users have better things to do than downvote everything!* 

A average session on SU involves scanning the front page for interesting things, looking at bounties, looking through the review tab (Cause the only way i can get flags is from answers that should be comments, and spammers.)

We *do* have things linked on the VTC chat page, but thats public and has been open for a while - and well, you're free to join in and ask *why*. Editing, closing, getting things merged and other janitorial things are done a lot more than downvotes. Downvotes are *boring*, I'd rather sort out a bad answer by posting a *better* answer, and bad questions through salvage or closure. In many cases we actually *try* our best to get the OP to adjust the question, or even get questions reviewed and reopened over meta. 

I have *no* idea why people seem to think there's some kind of downvote cabal keeping people down. Post good answers (or good questions! I've been known to give bounties for questions i find useful), and get rep. Don't forget 1 upvote = *5* downvotes, so a solitary downvote means very little if the answer is good. 




  [1]: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/90324/should-downvotes-on-questions-be-free
  [2]: https://i.sstatic.net/XjImD.png
  [3]: https://i.sstatic.net/Oq3RF.png