Kind of like people insulting OP in this thread, if you specifically ask people to not downvote something, they will downvote it. I don't think it's a serious sign of ill will.

I like how kbin works in this regard - while downvotes are available, kbin doesn't federate downvotes from other instances. So sometimes I'll have a post that looks like it has a mild positive score and someone will say "not sure why you're getting downvote" and I'm "huh?" Blissfully unaware. I think that while up/down voting can play an important role in moderation, voting and karma it didn't quite work out the way reddit intended originally. Downs are so often used as a way to lash out at someone, and very highly rated posts are often just some silly joke vs. something truly constructive. It's annoying and makes me roll me eyes to have one of those conversations where the other person downvotes each reply as soon as you post it.