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Yesterday I was surprised to see an additional 175 points added to my rep as someone had, apparently, voted up a whole series of my past questions (but not, notably, any of my answers).

Today that was reversed, I assume automatically.

Do I have to do anything myself ?

Do I have to make any declaration about not having any sock puppets (which, by the way, I do not have) or any agreements with other parties (which I also do not have) ?

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    You don't have to do a thing. The system automatically fixes serial voting, an undisclosed number, whether it be upvotes or downvotes. No one expects you to make any public confession.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Mar 18, 2019 at 6:01
  • Related.
    – Robusto
    Apr 24, 2019 at 13:30

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Mari-Lou A is quite correct.

The detection was automated. You're not under suspicion of anything. No need to declare anything.

Sometimes someone will give out a lot of votes to one other person, up or down, in quick succession, and then the automated process kicks in to reverse it as looks like the voter is voting on the person, not the content of the posts.

It's possible you gave someone a very helpful answer and they wanted to pay you back with a lot of up votes.

I wouldn't give it another thought.

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  • Thank you. Much appreciated.
    – Nigel J
    Mar 18, 2019 at 12:05
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    Deleting serial upvotes still seems like a weird parallelism. Why can't you just like someone's answers a lot? Or is it more of a defense against common fraudulent behavior (sockpupputs/collusion) and treating the rarer enthusiasm is an unfortunate false positive?
    – Mitch
    Mar 18, 2019 at 13:18
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    @Mitch I guess they think you can't have had time to read the answer, so you're not upvoting the answer. Yes, I would guess it's a defence against sock puppets and voter rings, too.
    – Matt E. Эллен
    Mar 18, 2019 at 14:30
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    @Mitch There is a particular algorithm that triggers it—a certain number in a certain period of time. If you upvote somebody two or three times a day because you generally like what they say, that's fine. But it's not fine if you upvote, say, thirty of their posts within a minute. (At least I assume that to be the gist of the algorithm.) Whatever the algorithm, I doubt it's highly unlikely for there to be a false positive. (The same is true of downvoting.)
    – Jason Bassford
    Mar 19, 2019 at 4:22
  • @JasonBassford I understand the mechanics of the algorithm. I question the intent of the algorithm because I don't know how often repeat up- or down- votes occur, the effects are vague (pissing people off with reducing rep, increasing rep fraudulently), I don't know what the motives of those people doing that are, I don't know how anyone else can know those motives. All in addition to not knowing exactly what motives correlate with what behavior. And that makes me concerned about other business logic in SE whose utility isn't clear.
    – Mitch
    Mar 19, 2019 at 12:33
  • @JasonBassford This isn't a big deal because the rule stops bad actors and it doesn't really inconvenience good actors. It's just a design decision that should be made clear (so that other design decisions won't be made badly).
    – Mitch
    Mar 19, 2019 at 12:35
  • @Mitch Motives (aside from those that result in systemic so-called sabotage, which the system detects) don't matter. Anybody can vote for any reason.
    – Jason Bassford
    Mar 19, 2019 at 13:17
  • @Mitch the "rule" (i.e. the algorithm) does not stop the bad actors, it merely identifies some of the most suspicious voting (but far from all of it) and makes a mathematical adjustment. Moderators aren't notified, and the bad actor can simply take the hit and carry on cheating.
    – Chappo Hasn't Forgotten Monica
    Apr 18, 2019 at 4:54

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