Depends on the context. It's one thing to get down-voted for pointing out some ideologically inconvenient thing or asking a question that's tough to answer in

Depends on the context. It's one thing to get down-voted for pointing out some ideologically inconvenient thing or asking a question that's tough to answer in a logically consistent manner. But this was a question about rocks. It's hard to find less inflammatory subject matter than that. All people had to do was take it at face value and not click a button. But they didn't they assumed bad intent. Behavior like that reflects upon the community in the same way that Reddit thinking you can't buy or sell goods via classified ads without a high likelihood getting scammed (to pick one example) is a reflection on that community.