14

Someone is systematically going through and downvoting all my posts. It doesn't really bother me --I have tens of thousands of points of rep, it would take a hell of a lot of downvoting to put a dent in that. But I am curious.

If it's you, please tell me why. Don't worry, you won't experience any repercussions, because there are no moderators left to discipline you.

3
  • 8
    The automated system actually may catch the person without the need for mods.
    – Summer
    Oct 4 '19 at 3:21
  • 1
    Is it truly systematic? How sure are you it is the same person and not just a conflagrance of coincidence?
    – Weckar E.
    Oct 4 '19 at 5:32
  • 2
    Honestly? It's probably that cough user cough that loves to harass the people of color on here.
    – weakdna
    Oct 7 '19 at 2:30
23

Interestingly enough, I received this via email

Hey, I'm the guy who downvoted you stupidly on SE.

I don't particularly want my handle coming up on internet searches connected to this, so I'm replying anonymously here. Now, if you get a mod to dig into this, so be it...

Anyway, I honestly, genuinely read lots of your posts (over several months) and actually disagreed on many occasions. But I was too stingy with my SE rep to actually downvote.

Then, all this mess with SE betraying our trust etc etc happened, and I decided to quit the site, and suddenly rep didn't matter any more. And I saw a post of yours and remembered I had wanted to downvote you several times. So I did, all in one go.

It was an idiotic thing to do. Hopefully (for my sake), if I hadn't been so worked up about the broader SE collapse, I wouldn't have done something so foolish. I certainly regret it if I caused you any personal annoyance, it actually was about disagreement about content, plus stupid mishandling of the process on my part.

I wish you all the best IRL

So there you have it --it's just a random symptom of the larger societal collapse of the SE community.

I do kind of have to admire the fact that they remembered disliking eighteen different of my posts enough to want to downvote them, but not enough to spend the eighteen points of rep doing so... :o

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  • 4
    Do you know what, I think I may know who the guy is. And I think, not sure, he still has another account.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Oct 7 '19 at 12:43
  • 6
    I'm not actually worried, or trying to hound this person. Just more amused by it than anything else...
    – Chris Sunami supports Monica
    Oct 7 '19 at 17:09
  • 4
    Out of interest, did the autoscript end up picking up the serial voting and reverse the DVs? PS: on another site I have low(ish) rep and I almost never DV other answers because I can't afford to drop below the threshold for my modest privileges, so I do understand the "too stingy" comment from the guy.
    – Chappo Hasn't Forgotten Monica
    Oct 7 '19 at 23:12
  • 10
    The fact they bothered to reach out is amazing. And while they disagree with you, you made enough of an impact to be noteworthy and memorable. That's a win as a writer correct?
    – linksassin Mod
    Oct 8 '19 at 0:02
  • 2
    @linksassin Did I miss something? It was just a single user, or was it?
    – user13402
    Oct 8 '19 at 14:14
  • 5
    @Chappo Yes, all the downvotes were auto-reversed.
    – Chris Sunami supports Monica
    Oct 8 '19 at 15:24
  • 4
    @openend Yes, just one user. We're using the singular "they" pronoun! :)
    – Chris Sunami supports Monica
    Oct 8 '19 at 15:25
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    @ChrisSunami I just looked it up. Turns out, it does exist. Just sounded wrong to my foreign ears.
    – user13402
    Oct 8 '19 at 15:56
  • 6
    @Chappo I once had exactly 500 rep on another site and was going through the review queue. I downvoted a post that needed it and was then bumped out of the queue for not having enough rep. ;]
    – Summer
    Oct 11 '19 at 20:48
13

It's definitely a serial downvoter.

enter image description here

The system, so no mod is actually required, should detect this biased voting and reverse the score within the next day or so. The details of the script and how it works are secret even to moderators.

1
  • 1
    I was once contacted by a mod for what was (admittedly) 3 DVs to another member over two days. This is pretty crazy. Even with an automatic reversal, a mod should address this. Or a CM (community manager).
    – JTP - Apologise to Monica
    Oct 4 '19 at 23:19
12

I don't expect the downvoter to own up, even with our current mod situation. But I do expect that the serial downvotes will be reversed, as there's an automated script that runs every day to check for and undo exactly this sort of abuse.

Give it a day or two, and if the downvotes haven't been undone and/or are still pouring in, it may be worth pinging a community manager or something and saying "Hey, can something be done about this?".

6

Not talking about Sunami, but we have had questioners on here I have downvoted every time, because they were intentionally asking a bunch of dumb "I want to have my cake and eat it too" questions (e.g. "I want to put in a deus ex machina without it seeming like one").

I hope those didn't just get reversed.

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    I don't think there's any prohibition on always voting down the same person. It's going through a single user's posts and voting them all down, one right after another. In other words, you're seeking them out, just to downvote them.
    – Chris Sunami supports Monica
    Oct 11 '19 at 20:23

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