I also want to emphasize that the main thing I wanted to highlight with the example was not that the regular karma was downvoted, but rather that the disagreement karma was, and that the content of the comment was not one that I was pretty confident an informed EA wouldn't disagree with (namely that climate change is not neglected and that directing money to more effective causes was valuable.) 

I saw this as another example of a pattern I think I may have perceived of "agreement-karma voting degradation." My impression was that the voting patterns I've seen (lower-quality agreement-karma voting) is evidence that EA Forum voters are less familiar with EA ideas than they once were.

Note though that Kirsten pointed out an alternative hypothesis for disagreement in her answer: "I think there have been some weird examples of voting recently, but this isn't one! I've long been annoyed with the naivite of EAs who think unsolicited outreach to billionaires will have a positive impact on the world."

So I've updated toward thinking that the example I gave as evidence of my perceived trend in bad agreement-karma voting wasn't actually a good example. In this case, the disagreement votes could be explained by people with Kirsten's view, rather than people disagreeing that climate change was neglected. (Though there are also EA Forum who do think climate change is neglected, per other answers this question received.)

Something highly upvoted but disagreement-downvoted means to me "we appreciate this comment's existence and want to incentivize that, but disagree with it factually". 

I agree with this sentence.

But it doesn't apply in this case because:

The example comment I gave was not "highly upvoted but disagreement-downvoted". Specifically, it was downvoted rather than "highly upvoted." (It had 9 karma with 11 votes meaning it was downvoted. Highly upvoted comments have much more karma than votes. Comments with equal karma to votes or less (as was in this case) were downvoted (since many users' votes necessarily deliver >1 karma).)

I'm guessing it got downvoted because it was interpreted as an attack on polyamory, or relationships between EAs in general, coming from someone new to/outside the community, and didn't spell out -- when it should be obvious(!) -- that the reason that it's a problem is conflict of interest (I spelled it out elsewhere in the thread and got upvoted. Shame that there is this fairly widespread blindspot in EA when it comes to conflicts of interest).

In said comment, you say:

An unverified suggestion in one article suggests that Ellison may have been in some form of relationship with other residents of the apartment

Are you referring to this article?

All 10 are, or used to be, paired up in romantic relationships with each other. That includes Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison, whose firm played a central role in the company's collapse – and who, at times, has dated Bankman-Fried, according to people familiar with the matter.

This doesn't read to me like a suggestion that Caroline was "in some form of relationship with other residents of the apartment" - in fact, the decision to specify "paired up" reads like a clarification that it's not a polycule - so people may have downvoted you for what they see as starting rumours.

I don't know what the situation was, but I wouldn't be surprised if some people here do know, and are disagree-voting on your suggestion that Caroline "may have been in some form of relationship with other residents of the apartment" accordingly.

Thanks for the helpful answer; this gives me some insight into the vote in this case!

To share my thoughts on this point with you:

The claim that it is "far from neglected" is also not in line with survey evidence and qualitative research on societal elites, which shows that it's quite often far down on the priority list for many people.

If you compare global annual spending on climate change to global annual spending on things like risks from AI, nuclear risk, or farmed animal welfare, it definitely seems to me like climate change is relatively extremely crowded.

This doesn't mean that there aren't any interventions on climate change that may be of similar cost-effectiveness to the most cost-effective interventions in these other cause areas, but on the scale of billions of dollars that Bezos want to spend on climate change I think it is a good reason to believe that the average cost-effectiveness will be significantly worse than what Bezos could do by making grants in other areas.

My meta-answer currently has 3 karma with 17 votes despite my explanation of how to do agreement-karma voting.

Did people downvote my answer intentionally for some reason?

Or  does this show that a lot of EA Forum users voting somehow still don't understand the difference between regular karma and agreement karma and downvoted thinking that was how to participate in the poll?

Edit: My guess is the latter, based on priors and the fact that the top level post (the question) itself doesn't have downvotes (14 karma with 6 votes) and none of the presumably several people who downvoted the meta-answer commented to explain why.

I think there have been some weird examples of voting recently, but this isn't one! I've long been annoyed with the naivite of EAs who think unsolicited outreach to billionaires will have a positive impact on the world.