One thing that virtually every Reddit power user (e.g., the type of person who would want to go around down-voting everything you comment) has is an extension called Reddit Enhancement Suite[1]. One of its features is the ability to tag usernames with custom messages. It's plausible that during your various disagreements, you were tagged by various users with something that indicated why they disliked you.
So if you continued to haunt the same places those people frequented, it wouldn't matter how long you waited to comment: as soon as you did, they'd see the tag, remember whatever it is they disliked about you, and down-vote.
That's all to say I think the problem you describe is less about coordinated vote rings against individuals and more about a community with individuals who hold grudges and have the tools available to enable them. I'm not sure it's systemic at Reddit, but just from what I've seen, people flying off the handle at the slightest provocation seems to happen far more frequently on Reddit than anywhere else.
Hmm, I've heard of the RES but didn't know about the specifics. When I say one or two disagreements, I really mean 1-2, and small ones at that, all things considered. I just mentioned it cause it's the only thing I could think of that might explain the systematic downvoting. As far as the subreddit, I subscribe(d) to several quite different ones so that wouldn't explain why my comments in all of those would be downvoted.
Also, thought it'd be good to add, when I mentioned before that I was upvoted frequently, it took about a year to get to 1,000 points, so it's not like I was a power-user.
> As far as the subreddit, I subscribe(d) to several quite different ones so that wouldn't explain why my comments in all of those would be downvoted.
Your comment history across all subreddits is one click away.
To give you an example of how quickly it can escalate, I once saw a comment that was completely incorrect, of the form "Wow, it's interesting that X is caused by Y!" I left a simple comment, "X is caused by Z, not Y." and left it at that.
The original comment subsequently received a single down-vote, and not from me. Likely someone who saw their comment and saw that it was wrong.
The original commenter replied to my comment, "Thanks for the reply, but it the down-vote was totally uncalled for." A few minutes later, before I could even respond, they deleted their comment and then every one of my 100+ comments were down-voted. Most of my comments prior to that had zero down-votes at all.
That's just my anecdote, and it's still possible you were subjected to coordinated down-vote ring, but you said this was the result of an isolated incident of 1-2 small disagreements. It seems more plausible that you were just tagged by a vindictive Reddit user than something particularly sophisticated.
Most likely it's the kind of bot you've mentioned. It makes the most sense, more than "stick-up-the-butt" users combing my comments in the past and as they happen in order to downvote them.
So if you continued to haunt the same places those people frequented, it wouldn't matter how long you waited to comment: as soon as you did, they'd see the tag, remember whatever it is they disliked about you, and down-vote.
That's all to say I think the problem you describe is less about coordinated vote rings against individuals and more about a community with individuals who hold grudges and have the tools available to enable them. I'm not sure it's systemic at Reddit, but just from what I've seen, people flying off the handle at the slightest provocation seems to happen far more frequently on Reddit than anywhere else.
[1]: http://redditenhancementsuite.com/