I would post something like "hey, you know f=ma" (a statement of fact in a non-hot-topic conversation that advanced the discussion) and see it get downvotes almost instantly. Then later the score would pop back up.
What can I tell you, Lionhearted? The board has gone to shit.
:)
I think the problem is that, in any group of people, 1% are probably not going to like you (for arbitrary reasons) or have some emtional hangup about any random piece of information. But most of the time it's a passive dislike. Only about 1% of that number would take any direct action against you (like downvoting an innocuous comment)
However when the daily numbers creep up past 40 or 50K, that 1% of 1% becomes a big enough number to start seeing some kindergarten voting games going on. Nothing much you can do about it -- simply a property of the numbers involved. We probably all do it, but because it's only a 1 in 10K experience, it's so extremely rare in ourselves that we don't even notice it.