It's not odd at all, it's because of the dichotomy of being able to downvote com...

Hexstream on May 28, 2008 | parent | context | favorite | on: Vista Is Good

It's not odd at all, it's because of the dichotomy of being able to downvote comments but not stories. So a story that 20 people love and 30 people hate gets 20 points while a comment with the same demographics gets -10.

This system encourages stories that generate strong emotions even if disapproval is strong.

jpeterson on May 28, 2008 [–]

Another way to read that is it encourages sock puppet story upvoting.