The "backfired" I was referring to is that I now see this as a topic that is deemed more interesting to the community rather than less, and therefore one that there's benefit to participating in. It's true that the downvoter in question incurs no penalty aside from the limited impact on their pool of allowable downvotes, but they do also get to see this discussion they dislike so much continuing...

EDIT: I'd be in favor on some kind of anti-mass-downvote system.