Not arressting people for theft is pretty extremist and I can't imagine how that is a good thing for the citizens of Seattle.

Adding a comment complaining about being downvoted tends to invite more downvotes from unrelated posters.

The timing is just so interesting though!

Two of my comments saw 3 downvotes in the span of a minute, the latter of which was much further down than this comment.

Amazing: A whole three downvotes! No way more than two people are reading this comment section at the same time.

I downvoted you, and I’m pretty sure I’m not a bot. I did so because failing to lock up people that commit serious crimes is prima facie extremist - no citation is necessary.

Downvoting is against the site’s policy? Why does the downvote button exist then?

Downvoting (from what I gather) is supposed to be used not as a disagree button, but rather as a tool when a comment doesn't add value to a conversation, hence why downvotes are so restricted on HN.

This is completely wrong.

dang - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17996858

PG - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=392347

Downvoting as a tool to show disagreement has always been standard practice here. Mini-modding on the other hand...

I think you have a misunderstanding of this issue. If that’s the case, essentially every downvote I have ever received was an “abuse” of the feature.