After reading this post here I took a deep dive into the database and ran a few queries to see if I could use it to detect some basic manipulation such as brigading or other types of persistent hostile behavior.
I'd describe this as people who could have blocked a certain community but instead seemingly dedicate themselves to continuously downvote posts, maybe because they don't like furry stuff in general.
Each line in the image corresponds to one person and how many times they have downvoted posts in a given community.
I won't take any actions right now, this is all very experimental. I just wanted to share this with y'all to let you know that we admins have tools to give us clues about whether some sort of brigading is going on.
Interesting stuff. Personally, I'd urge people who don't like furry stuff to just block a community and carry on. There's nothing to be gained by obsessing yourself with stuff you don't like.
That's already a thing, it's called banning them from the instance. Though I can understand why they wouldn't want to start banning people for downvoting alone, it might be seen as extreme, but it also could be seen as necessary since these people are brigading the instance.