2) That's also been my experience. I've always been interested to see if a forum moderator would "down vote proof" a post that falls into that category: Unpopu

2) That's also been my experience. I've always been interested to see if a forum moderator would "down vote proof" a post that falls into that category: Unpopular but well reasoned and not inflammatory. In the same way that "anti-brigading" approaches watch for floods of upvotes from a single referral source, it seems like clearing + blocking down votes would be beneficial in the other direction (or temporarily suspending access to down voting for users exhibiting the behavior).