Each of your comments detracted from the conversation, so I downmodded them all, if that makes you feel better.
Clever, but not true. The sarcastic ones did, I agree. But the second one started a thread of sum karma ~100. That's the opposite of detracting ;)
1 - This makes the witty comeback a lesser strategy for obtaining karma.
2 - People who are aware of this will stop responding to trolls. Even if they publish a well-reasoned response to a troll, they will be giving them karma points. Since this is not a common feature of internet forums, this might be worth spelling out above an active comment form.
3 - The best strategy for karma is to advance the discussion somehow. Even if your point ends up exposing the point of view of people on the other side.
That sounds like a surefire way to encourage provocation (a.k.a trolling). If you make a deliberately provocative and clueless statement and n people take the time to exhaustively tell you why you're wrong (for which they get karma), I don't think you deserve any of the karma given to the comments you provoked.
Presumably at some point that ceases to be true for a sufficiently complicated and good system, but my guess is that we're up into AI-complete territory there.
I upmodded some of the answers you were given because they were informative and calmed the conversation down. That is the opposite of detracting.
Frankly I do not see the point of downvoting or bragging about it, and your explanation does not make it right either.
Each of your comments detracted from the conversation,
You single handedly decided what detracts from the conversation, and I am sure you are not HN spokesman.
It's like "an eye for an eye", but in this case you are hurting someone because you disagree with their opinion or the way they expressed it (and yes, I understand sometimes some users can be disrespectful).
But even when someone is clearly not following the HN guidelines, they should simply be reminded of it, then ignored forever.
The "free hand" in HN will auto-regulate them. That is the same free hand that does not upvote spam links.
Downvoting comments "should not be" just as downvoting stories "is not". Silence is by far the best way to respond to ignorance.
While they didnt add "in my opinion" I think its more than obviously implied that it was his opinion that he was stating, and was not attempting to speak on behalf of anyone else.
and the original poster stated that comments detract from the conversation should be downmodded, I agree that all 3 were somewhat insulting and added no value to the conversation, while I may be a relatively new user, they all seemed out of spirit (in my opinion)
At least, this is my understanding of how pg intends the system to be used.