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According to this query, of the 259 questions on Meta with a score of -20 or less, 145 questions hit the proposed rep cap. 66 of these were closed (for various reasons). Of those 145 questions, 75 represent a negative rep change of 50 or more (37 of which are closed), and 44 represent a negative rep change of 60 or more (19 of which are closed). The average rep "saved" on the 145 questions (that is, the absolute number of points after adding 40) is about 16-17. I did not take account deletion into consideration when calculating these numbers. I have not looked into all of these questions to their relative value to the community.

According to this query, of the 259 questions on Meta with a score of -20 or less, 145 questions hit the proposed rep cap. 66 of these were closed (for various reasons). Of those 145 questions, 75 represent a negative rep change of 50 or more (37 of which are closed), and 44 represent a negative rep change of 60 or more (19 of which are closed). The average rep "saved" on the 145 questions (that is, the absolute number of points after adding 40) is about 16-17. I did not take account deletion into consideration when calculating these numbers. I have not looked into all of these questions to their relative value to the community.

On Stack Overflow, most heavily downvoted questions are eventually deleted, potentially restoring the OP's rep. Stack Overflow has a grand total of 6 questions with a score of -20 or less.

On Stack Overflow, most heavily downvoted questions are eventually deleted, potentially restoring the OP's rep. Stack Overflow has a grand total of 6 questions with a score of -20 or less.

According to Revisiting the rep cap (yes, again), there are three (maybe more) purposes for the rep cap:

• Should downvote-without-comment rate remain unpublished?
• NSFW proposal on Area51
• Provision to delete answers to your question
• Proposal that FAQ be modified to allow signed questions
• How can I ignore questions from users with less than 20 reputation?
• Stack Overflow should have smileys and friend groups

Robert Harvey had a different suggestion for dealing with this problem, which I think would be effective if all users abided by his post. But as Shog9 pointed out, the suggestion is a good idea but largely impractical.

According to Revisiting the rep cap (yes, again), there are three (maybe more) purposes for the rep cap:

• Should downvote-without-comment rate remain unpublished?
• NSFW proposal on Area51
• Provision to delete answers to your question
• Proposal that FAQ be modified to allow signed questions
• How can I ignore questions from users with less than 20 reputation?
• Stack Overflow should have smileys and friend groups

Robert Harvey had a different suggestion for dealing with this problem, which I think would be effective if all users abided by his post. But as Shog9 pointed out, the suggestion is a good idea but largely impractical.