> the site is so much smaller than Reddit it can take months to reach that threshold.

You can get there in days if you just spot a few bandwagons to hop on.

> I post things I know won't be well-received here all the time and it's quite rare for a comment to go below -2 karma, but comparatively common for these sorts of comment to get flagged despite not breaking any rules.

Yep, there's no downside to frivolously downvoting/flagging: It just takes a 2-3 people to hide your comment from the majority of the users as soon as it's posted, easy for a PR firm with paid people watching a topic like hawks.

Sometimes when I get insta-downvoted in a heated topic, if I delete my comment and repost later, the first few votes are positive. So it's clearly dependent on luck/time, which it shouldn't be.

I and others suggested this years ago: Maybe votes shouldn't have any effect for the first 12 or 24 hours.