Please don't change the subject to downvotes. It never works, which is why HN has not one but two guidelines against it: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Also, as typically happens, that comment is no longer net-downvoted.

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13180415 and marked it off-topic.

But I wasn't complaining about being downvoted, nor was I inviting anyone to downvote me. A comment not written by me was downvoted by someone who didn't seem to be represented in the replies to it, and I really did want to know why, out of actual curiosity.

I appreciate the curiosity part, but it really is off topic.