"This is actually why I left reddit. As the site grew, I became increasingly frustrated that anything I said contrary to popular opinion was mercilessly downvoted & derided, regardless of the actual quality of the comment."

I hadn't noticed this. In fact, I noticed the opposite -- that well-articulated comments taking controversial views still got upvoted. It was just a stricter quality filter. And anyway, it's easy to take advantage of reddit's predilections. A while ago, I read a great George Will column, and thought it deserved to be reddited. My headline was something like "Notorious Neocon George Will actually believes that..."

I left because it was getting boring and homogeneous.