This could be simply answered with a single answer that applies to any community - just post whatever panders to the average community member if you care about irrelevant counter in your profile.
Usually it's the second.
Some opinions are neither right nor wrong, they are just point of views, and the unpopular ones tend to get downvoted--admittedly, to a lesser extent on HN than other communities, but still happens. This has the unfortunate effect that, as you point out, the downvoted author doesn't know if there was something wrong with the tone or content, or if it just happened that his/her views are unpopular.
Maybe asking for a few words (presumably in a small, unintrusive ajax form, and not visible in the main thread) as reason for downvoting could be useful, and somewhat deter "not-my-opinion-at-all" downvotes.
There are people who, having posted something "controversial" only because it bucks a common fallacy or "political correctness", will enlist all of their social media candidates to downvote someone who dared disagree with them... even if only via pointing out factual fallacies with objective references.
I took a 50-point hit once on one posting simply by posting objective references that challenged (actually, disproved) a political rant.
Like any form of "social media", it's partially a popularity contest.
There are nonconfrontational ways of presenting views you know are going to encounter flak. One is to do so as a question.
True, but...
> One is to do so as a question.
...this can often come off as passive-aggressive when it is used to present a view; that's not really an improvement. If you are stating a view, just state it: to make it nonconfrontational, don't be condescending to people who disagree, don't predict that you will be downvoted into oblivion or otherwise persecuted for posting it, and generally extend the same charity to the community that you would like them to extend to your viewpoint.
Unfortunately this doesn't work. You still tend to get downvoted into oblivion. The problem is that if you poke holes in a dubious argument, you'll get downvoted simply because people disagree with you. There is no real way around this, and I've mostly given up on commenting except when I know I won't be downvoted. I don't really give a shit about karma, it's more the idea of rudeness/negativity behind people downvoting things that they disagree with -- even if you post a logical, well thought-out argument -- that I have a problem with.
No, it does work; if it didn't, I wouldn't have more than 20K Karma, often with highly upvoted posts disagreeing with posts that are also upvoted (or at least not downvoted), including from people who are higher on the leaderboard.
The idea that you get downvoted to oblivion simply for disagreeing with the majority regardless of quality on HN (whether it comes from people who describe the majority as politically right-libertarian or leftist, or pro-FSF, or those who describe it as pro-Apple, pro-Microsoft, pro-Google, or anti- any of those things -- and I've seen it from every possible side of all of those, except I don't think I've seen anyone accuse HN of having an anti-HN downvote-to-oblivion majority) is simply wrong.
Depending on basically random factors (who is reading when) posts on controversial topics that make substantial points well may occasionally get early downvotes for disagreement, but usually that gets overwhelmed, or at least neutralized, by positive votes very quickly.
This happens every time, and it's a little irritating.
I had a quick look at your comments and didn't see any comments such as this.
("downvoted into oblivion" is perhaps an exaggeration. I'm talking about -2 or -3 votes for a comment).
Most of the time you get downvotes on something, the number of downvotes is small. Only the cases where something is massively downvoted and flagged out of existence can be readily explained.
Suppose 5000 people look at your posting and almost all of them agree that sometimes it is appropriate to swear, and your posting is one of those occasions: but two out of those 5000 don't agree, and downvote you. Well, there you go: you have the tacit support of 4998/5000 readers (just not enough to give you an upvote for it) and two downvotes.
Being acceptable to the majority in some "common sense" way is not enough to spare your comment. Either your comment has to have appeal so that it attracts upvotes from a significant segment of the site readers who come across it, or, failing that, a comment which doesn't attract upvotes, has to avoid raising the ire of minorities.
(Regarding the use "minorities": I'm using that here to denote absolutely any rare trait, background or world outlook whatsoever (where "rare" doesn't mean "odd" or "strange"); I am not specifically referring to "ethnic minorities".)
For the above reasons, situations where a comment is reduced to 0, -1 or even -2 are not always easily explained, other than by the general remark that it is probably less than "spotlessly inoffensive". (Imagine the ways in which some element in the comment might rub someone somewhere the wrong way, and you have a halfway plausible explanation.)
Only when some comment is massively flagged out of existence is there an obvious plausible explanation.
I'm guessing the shortness of your comment and the negativity without sources made a difference? But that's just a guess.
On HN, bland comments which attract no upvotes have to be spotlessly inoffensive to every imaginable mindset so that they survive the 24 hour "statute of limitations" for downvotes.
... keeping in mind that some people punish blandness itself with a downvote!
[It would be fun to try and come of a set of user stereotypes for HN - but there would be quite a few...]
Submission Topics:
* Pro-privacy
* Pro-big tech corporations (Apple, Google, even Microsoft)
* Optimism about technology in general
* Press releases about big funding rounds
* Literally any blog post from Sam or pg.
* Most blog posts from some other pillar of the tech world.
* Agree with the original submission's premise and back it up with an anecdote
or citations nobody will ever click on.
* Ask a question that is really gentle and allows people to respond agreeing
with the original article.
* Defend against anyone who actually criticizes a submission that is doing well.
Submission Topics:
* Any news related to Tesla, SpaceX and Elon Musk.
* Space.
* Rocket launch events with live streaming.
* Anti-big tech corporations, in context of privacy.
* Dietetics. Will always bring a lot of flamewar.
* Show HNs.
* Completely random Wikipedia article that describes something interesting.
* One to five words of disagreement (usually flagkilled).
* Comments debunking lies, mistakes and omissions in mainstream news coverage,
often by someone directly or indirectly involved in the article's subject matter.
* 'tokenadult posting a wall of text from whatever personal wiki he's maintaining,
usually full of interesting facts and citations; almost always a top comment,
deservingly so.