What’s everyone’s thoughts on down votes and up votes. What do they mean to you. When do you down vote?

In my experience I only use the down vote, when a comment or post does not reflect the COMMUNITY it is posted in, not because I dislike X Y or Z.

I ask this because I have noticed many times when posting in smaller more niche communities that a post will get random down votes and I suspect it is from people scrolling new or hot and just down voting things that don’t like.