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I have old, or relatively old, answers being downvoted for no apparent reason after numerous upvotes on said questions.

Why are battery-powered lights so popular? -2
Pros and cons panniers and messenger bags -2
Determining if a road is safe to bike on -2
Re-painting Rims -2

In what way were these bad answers?

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Took me a little while (and asking on a moderators chat room how to find it), but I believe I found what the problem is and am contacting the appropriate people.

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  • "Looking at your Recent Reputation Changes it does look suspiciously like somebody might be systematically downvoting everything you post. I'll try to investigate further."
    – user313
    Commented Jul 18, 2011 at 20:40
  • @wdypdx22: I was able to find more details and updated my answer appropriately. :)
    – freiheit Mod
    Commented Jul 18, 2011 at 20:48
  • @freilheit - Thank you. I'm ok with answers being downvoted; but not just randomly out of the blue with no reason provided.
    – user313
    Commented Jul 18, 2011 at 21:14
  • @wdypdx22 Something about you calling me a nut job on the site, publicly, did sort of bring you to my attention. So, I read everything you posted, and downvoted the ones I didn't like or agree with. I didn't downvote anything I did agree with. So what's the problem?
    – zenbike
    Commented Jul 19, 2011 at 19:39
  • @freilheit: Not everything he posted. Just what I didn't like or agree with. This is within the rules, I believe, since I am free to read and vote on any post at any time?
    – zenbike
    Commented Jul 19, 2011 at 19:41
  • 1
    @zenbike - There's no requirement you do so, but leaving a note when downvoting is probably a good thing to do--especially in a situation like this. Everyone - This is a very small community, and it's important we stay civil.
    – Goodbye Stack Exchange Mod
    Commented Jul 19, 2011 at 22:20
  • I agree, we should remain civil, but as @wdypdx22 felt it was ok to call me names publicly, and as he on at least one occasion downvoted me because he felt I was "giving him a hard time", his words, which he commented and then deleted, and as the post I was "giving him a hard time on" was one I liked and upvoted, agreeing with him totally, and as at the same time as all this was happening I was getting downvotes from him ( I believe) on everything I was posting, I don't think he has cause to complain. Especially as all it did was get me to read his old posts.
    – zenbike
    Commented Jul 20, 2011 at 8:00
  • @neil there is a <div> which reminds people to comment constructively, if they want to, when downvoting. This happens until 2k rep on every downvote.
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Jul 20, 2011 at 10:32
  • 1
    @zenbike - Here's a related blog post, in part about "revenge downvoting".
    – ChrisW
    Commented Jul 20, 2011 at 12:14
  • 1
    @ChrisW: I get it. But if someone gets my attention, in whatever way, and I read all their posts, I can upvote or downvote as I see fit. I'm not randomly downvoting everything he does. I'm still upvoting things he does which I find have value. And I'm no longer paying attention to him in particular. But he was rude to me, and it got my attention. I wanted to know who he was, so i read his posts. All of them. And I voted according to what i felt was appropriate on those posts. Nothing revenge like about it.
    – zenbike
    Commented Jul 20, 2011 at 12:36
  • @zenbike - You had your say. Let's not argue about this.
    – user313
    Commented Jul 21, 2011 at 23:05
  • 1
    @zenbike: I disagree with your analysis. If you started looking at a single user's posts for things to download, then your principal focus is on the user, not on the overall quality of posts on the site. In other words, your downvotes are not organically a result of you browsing the site; rather, they are the result of attention you have focused on a single user. The fraud detection scripts are designed to identify exactly this kind of behavior and nullify it.
    – Robert Harvey
    Commented Sep 21, 2011 at 18:28
  • 2
    Actually, the fraud detection scripts are designed to stop people from voting everything down or up for a particular user. That wasn't the case here. But it was a rather stupid argument to get into in the first place. I should have just let it go.
    – zenbike
    Commented Sep 22, 2011 at 16:42

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