{EDITED to clarify, as kinda suggested by wedrifid, some highly relevant context.}

This comment by JoshuaZ was, when I saw it, voted down to -3, despite the fact that it

• addresses the question it's responding to
• gives good reasons for making the guess JoshuaZ said he made
• seems like it's at a pretty well calibrated level of confidence
• is polite, on topic, and coherent.

A number of JoshuaZ's other recent comments there have received similar treatment. It seems a reasonable conclusion (though maybe there are other explanations?) that multiple LW accounts have, within a short period of time, been downvoting perfectly decent comments by JoshuaZ. As per other discussions in that thread [EDITED to add: see next paragraph for more specifics], this seems to have been provoked by his making some "pro-feminist" remarks in the discussions of that topic brought up by recent events in HPMOR.

{EDITED to add...} Highly relevant context: Elsewhere in the thread JoshuaZ reports that, apparently in response to his comments in that discussion, he has had a large number of comments on other topics downvoted in rapid succession. This, to my mind, greatly raises the probability that what's going on is "playing the man, not the ball": that the cause of the downvotes isn't simply that many LW participants disagree strongly with me about the merits of the individual comments.

It seems to me that this is a kind of abuse that needs to be stopped. To be clear, I don't mean abuse of JoshuaZ, who I bet is perfectly capable of handling it. I mean abuse of LW. Specifically, it appears to be a concerted attempt to shape discussions here not by rational argument, nor even by appeal to emotion, but by intimidation.

(I suppose I should mention an amusing contrary hypothesis to which I attach very low probability. Perhaps the downvotes are from friends of JoshuaZ, who hope to attract sympathy upvotes and will change their own downvotes to upvotes in a week or two when no one's watching any more.)

I would address this to the LW admins by PM if I knew who they are, but the only person I know to be an LW admin is Eliezer and I believe he's very busy at the moment.

{EDITED to add ...} One other remark, just in case of suspicions. I am not JoshuaZ, nor do I have any idea who he is outside LW, nor (so far as I know) have I had any interaction with him outside LW, nor have I had enough in-LW interaction with him to regard him as an ally or a friend or anything of the kind. There is no personal element to any of what I have said.

{Totally irrelevant remark: The squiggly brackets are because [this sort] which I'd normally use for noting what I've edited interacts badly with the Markdown hyperlink syntax.}