Anyone banning for downvoting is incredibly petty or thin skinned, just my observation. If it wasn't for the instance shutting down, it would have made a good post on yptb. Reading other comment threads on this post support the thin skinned theory imho. I just happened to be browsing all when I found the post. Looking at my subs, I wasn't subscribed to any community there.
What about in the context of mass-downvoters? I can't speak for Dubvee, but mass-downvoters do exist - and they can be corrosive for smaller communities trying to grow, as early downvotes of threads can effectively kill them. These are accounts that seem to primarily downvote and don't actually interact on-site, and have no real pattern to it. This kind of response has little to do with sensitivity.