Well, I did downrate the first post (see below for the reason) - not sure if that qualifies as "pestering" Roman in your eyes. But there are certainly no hard feelings from my side towards anyone. To me, showing (dis)approval by rating a post isn't that big a deal either. If a friend of mine had posted the OP in a chat, then I would have shown my disapproval too, and then we simply would have moved on. I can actually answer this question very precisely, though I'm not sure if you'll like the answer, because in a way it "blames" you. I'll post it anyway because I think you're genuinely interested in an answer and you may be genuinely unaware of the way you're contributing to the effect you're criticizing. So, here's my answer to your question.

I rarely use the rep system at all. Rep is so unimportant to me that for the most part I simply forget that the rep system even exists. Usually, when I see something I disapprove of, I simply close the thread. With this thread, two things were different:

First, the OP was (imho) substantially worse than many other threads - not because of any single major "offense", but because of the facts that it contains several no-gos at once (mudslinging against one forum on another, personal attack against someone behind his back so that he can't defend himself here, trivializing North Korea's situation, racial slurs which stupidly even choose the wrong dialect to make fun of) while actually having no redeeming quality at all (the joke wasn't even remotely funny imho). I agree that the individual factors aren't particularly strong, but this post just piled up too many of them for my taste. Still, this alone wouldn't have caused me to downrep the post - see below.

Second: I read the posts by Roman5 and you that complained about people downrating the post. And these were the decisive factors that made me downrate it too. While I _did_ disapprove of the post from the beginning, I wouldn't have downrated it because, as I said, I usually simply forget that the rep system even exists. However, Roman's and your complaint made my _remember_ that it exists, and this was the decisive factor that made me actually express my already existing disapproval by clicking on the minus sign.

And for that reason I don't understand why Roman and you turned this thread into a discussion of the rep system in the first place. With an OP that's so obviously controversial, then focusing the readers' attention on the rep system is a surefire way to exacerbate the damage. There's a very basic rule with such forums: Simply mentioning the rep system will usually amplify the magnitude of the initial reaction, but not change its direction. Due to this, I fail to understand why you keep discussing the rep system in the threads where your posts will cause the most damage to the people who you claim to defend. Please don't take this as an attack, it's not meant as one. I'm convinced that you are genuinely unaware of these effects, possibly because the rep system is so important to you that you don't realize the effect of these discussions on people who don't think about it all the time. But I'm very certain that the effect itself _does_ exist, and that your repeated attempts to defend people do actually more harm than good to them for exactly this reason.

There's also another factor contributing to the down-repping: That's the fact that Roman's post (and your first posts about the issue) showed no understanding nor even acceptance of the fact that the OP obviously met many people's disapproval. Instead of trying to understand the reasons, or even apologize towards the people who felt offended, both of you basically _attacked_ people for their differing opinion, telling them they "need to lighten up" or "have no sense of humor". This is another surefire way to magnify the damage. And while _you_ took the time to actually learn and understand why the OP was downrated, I haven't seen such a reaction from Roman yet. I therefore can only conclude that he really feels that his post was absolutely okay and that everyone who downrated the post needs to "lighten up". With this attitude (and that's why I'm mentioning it, it answers another of your questions), he definitely makes it more likely that future, similar posts of him will be downrated as well. Since he doesn't seem to be moved by arguments, he leaves people no better choice to voice their disapproval of any future posts than downrating them. That's not a bunch of personally motivated crusades, but simply people's logical reaction to such behavior. It's possible that this has already happened (you mentioned that you perceive his posts to be downrated more often than others), but I haven't paid close attention to that aspect.

Anyway. I've written probably ten times more than the matter is worth to me, but you _do_ seem genuinely interested in the reasons for the downrating, so I thought I'd offer some answers. Hope that helped, and, as said above, no hard feelings. :)