Whats with severe downvoting?

Question

This post is being pushed down through floor to second level basement! Is there any reason to push down something anywhere beyound -2 or -3 really?

It is not a spam nor an offensive post, what happened to taking it easy on the new comers?

Answer 1

The only thing I can think of (and for the record, I didn't add to the downvotes on that question) is that the question shows a complete lack of effort. You have now fixed the most glaring problem (writing "U" instead of "You", because, y'know, those two extra letters would've caused the OP's fingers to drop off), but it still has some odd capitalization, and it's really hard to tell what exactly he's asking: is he wondering about "for" vs. "get to", or "a biscuit" vs. "the biscuit", or is one or both of those differences just a typo? Not to mention, anyone who actually speaks English on even a rudimentary level should understand the difference here (unless there's something more subtle and slangy going on, but we haven't been given enough context to figure that out).

I agree that -7 seems excessive, though.

Answer 2

Strangely enough, it's not one person voting a terrible -7, but rather 7 people who independently voted down.

Ah...that's terribly wrong...each individual sees the question, then looks at the vote, then goes through a complicated, inconsistent balance of snap judgement, following others, worth the effort to vote (one way or the other), thinking no need to vote, etc.

The question (in my opinion, but I didn't bother to vote) was worded too informally, and I think easily googlable.

Look at the (currrenlty) most downvoted questions. I don't see a particular pattern there other than they were just unpopular, poorly worded, or presumptuous.