Yep. It's entirely possible to say one unpopular thing, or something too reddity, and end up with a pile of downvotes. I've seen some well-meaning people post

Yep. It's entirely possible to say one unpopular thing, or something too reddity, and end up with a pile of downvotes. I've seen some well-meaning people post friendly explanations to such comments by new users and to "not worry about it", but apparently such new users would be better off starting another account by that point. ETA: One of the things I don't like about HN is that it's so opaque in that regard. It has secret rules that only exist in the Arc code and get hinted at randomly in threads, not put together somewhere a new person could read them. (No, the Guidelines are not those rules.)