I seem to accuмulate about 50-100 downvotes per week, so I don't think it's really preventing too much.
With the old system, given that I have 5,000+ downvotes, an individual poster could have gone in and given me close to 1,000 just by himself. There's a good chance that there are several individuals here who are responsible for 500 or more of the 5,000 that I accuмulated before. Meanwhile, a poster with about 10 downvotes (because they only had a small number of posts), I couldn't give more than 2 to. In other words, that person could hammer me with 1,000, while I could only give them 2. So I agree that something didn't seem right.
I don't really care about the downvotes, personally. I only even notice them when I get some for a completely innocuous post.
And, no, I'm not going to back down from a handful of posters here who continue to promote the Western / Jєωιѕн / Satanic propaganda against Russia and Putin, along with slanderous character assassination of any who feel that there's some (albeit limited) good in Putin ... such as +Vigano, +Williamson, myself, and quite a few others.
I've never said that Russia is beyond reproach or criticism, but the maniacal one-sided obsession with Putin, while ignoring the evils of the West, and practically serving as mouthpieces for Western propaganda ... that I have no patience for whatsoever. That one poster who complained about being unable to downvote me posted a link implying that those who don't back the US in this entire thing are traitors and guilty of treason (and he'd likely have given me 1,000 downvotes by now if he could have). I might take some of these guys seriously if they criticized both sides, but not when they might as well be CNN's, the UN's, Biden's, and Soros' representatives, propaganda mouthpieces, and paid agents on this forum.