I can’t speak for OP but when I get unexplained/unexpected downvotes I don’t care about it affecting me eg in terms of karma. I care that I’ve contributed something I think is either helpful or at worst innocuous and people haven’t explained what they found wrong with it. I can’t learn anything from that. Usually with a similar appeal for feedback I get what OP has apparently experienced: my original comment levels out, my appeal gets downvoted. To HN’s credit this time, at least there’s been some feedback along with that.
I have another comment about Lord of the Flies downvotes (on the post about the HN parody). I suspect either no one wants to do anything about it, or else they think it's a feature, not a bug. They're dreaming of a world that's long gone.
The received wisdom of the rest of the social network Web is: up/down vote the comment, not the commenter. That doesn't quite solve your problem, but it's a good start.
