Downvotes do affect reputation score of a steemit user and it can also make the user loose the earnings on his or her contents on steemit,the

best practices to make in other to prevent downvotes is that you should make sure that your

contents are fit to be on the steemit platform,ensure that the content is a good

content,ensure that you are not spamming everywhere on steemit,ensure that you do not

downvote others too for no reason,also make sure that you are not abusive to other steemians on the steemit platform..