It's not odd at all, it's because of the dichotomy of being able to downvote comments but not stories. So a story that 20 people love and 30 people hate gets 20

It's not odd at all, it's because of the dichotomy of being able to downvote comments but not stories. So a story that 20 people love and 30 people hate gets 20 points while a comment with the same demographics gets -10. This system encourages stories that generate strong emotions even if disapproval is strong.