<p>A good number of arguements for and against question downvotes being <a href="http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/90324/should-downvotes-on-questions-be-free">free are here</a>, and i'd like to not re-visit these arguments. </p>

<p>Rather than that, i'd like to show what <em>my</em> voting patterns are like.</p>

<p><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/XjImD.png" alt="enter image description here"></p>

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

<p>However, the detailed statistics paint a slightly different picture.</p>

<p><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/Oq3RF.png" alt="enter image description here"></p>

<p>86 of these 146 votes were for things that were deleted or closed. </p>

<p>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). </p>

<p><em>High rep users have better things to do than downvote everything!</em> </p>

<p>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.)</p>

<p>We <em>do</em> 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 <em>why</em>. Editing, closing, getting things merged and other janitorial things are done a lot more than downvotes. Downvotes are <em>boring</em>, I'd rather sort out a bad answer by posting a <em>better</em> answer, and bad questions through salvage or closure. In many cases we actually <em>try</em> our best to get the OP to adjust the question, or even get questions reviewed and reopened over meta. </p>

<p>I have <em>no</em> 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 = <em>5</em> downvotes, so a solitary downvote means very little if the answer is good. </p>