Comes up in discussion every now and again. The consensus is that very few people do it and it for the most part doesn't hurt anything. It's no different from someone that votes up everything. In the long run it averages out.

Don't worry about downvotes. I can think of very few frontpage videos that were ruined by one or two serial-downvoters. (sure you could cite examples, but it is a small percentage, odds are if you resubmit same video they might not see it)
Sometimes people click by accident, sometimes people are in a bad mood and downvote every simpsons video, or whatever.

Now the only real problem is when downvotes are used based on a submitters username. And limited votes doesn't fix that because there are always more than just one person 'ganging up' in those situations. I'm sure you can search sifttalk posts for the many many discussions about downvoting.

Yeah I share the same attitude about the whole thing. I know when downvoting was first introduced it caused a bit of an uproar but I haven't noticed too much since. But your right, this is about the majority rule and an a few nays can't veto a plethora of yays.

I personally think that downvotes should be reserved for videos which you strongly object to - not just videos that aren't to your taste, or that you find boring. I only vote against videos I really object to - normally on moral grounds. For example, on my profile I say "Muslim/Islam/Arab bashing nonsense, or any other racist or ignorant crap will be automatically voted down." I also think that if people vote against a post it is polite to explain why because a down vote can sometimes stop a video from being published.

I agree with the general assumption that it doesn't hurt the videos overall, I think a change will come about if it reaches Digg level ridiculousness.

I have a downvoting policy which is related mostly to fluff videos and cutesy stuff. Downvoting without a reason being given is pretty annoying in my books.

I'm not sure what do you mean by digg level ridiculousness farhad?

he means if we hit ZOMG users critical mass.

I agree that it will become a problem. just becuase it's a prolbem now doesn't mean it won't be in the very near future. I would rather see a proactive approach than reactive.