Appears as though your thoughts are correct. From how I read it, nodes only get reaped based on consider votes plus downvotes, not on downvotes alone: What is Reaping?.

-stevieb

My comment was incomplete, but the error is really tangential to the point being made. :-)

Not really, because if a node must be considered to be reaped, then there must be a valid reason to consider it. According to the current documentation on consideration (linked multiple times earlier in this thread), the kind of posts we're talking about don't qualify unless you consider them "offensive." (Being incorrect is specifically said not to be grounds for consideration.) They offend me, but the consensus seems to be that they aren't offensive, or at least not offensive enough to be censored like spam or porn.

Aaron B.
Available for small or large Perl jobs and *nix system administration; see my home node.

Touché