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Apologies if this isn't the right place to answer this question, but I recently ran into the following issue, and wasn't sure how exactly to handle it.

On this question, I posted an answer, and returned about 10 minutes later to find that someone (vehomzzz in particular), had copied part of my answer and pasted it into a new answer (now deleted) in such a way that it didn't fit at all with his answer and was just a blatant grab. (e.g. the answer ended in "for instance:" ). I down-voted his answer and left a comment along the lines of "if you're going to copy/paste from me, at least edit it to make it cohesive". There was at least one other downvote later.

Since then, vehomzzz has deleted his answer and left the following comment on mine:

@Dusty im on to you now - I will downvote all of your answers/questions

and he did indeed go through and downvote many of my answers out of a sense of retribution. While this only cost me about 20 rep, it seems like incredibly anti-social behavior, and on a site where the community is so important, I'm hoping that there is some relief from this sort of behavior.

So I guess my question is, what is the best way to deal with this sort of thing? Is there some sort of moderator relief? Should I just accept it's going to happen and deal with the minimal rep loss? Other suggestions? I hate unexplained downvotes, but now I certainly see why they would be advantageous.

Update: his comment is now @Dusty -- it's ON! Lovely.

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    One thing you can do is flag that "I will downvote" comment. Not much, I know, and doesn't help with commentless downvotes, but it's better than nothing.
    – Marthaª
    Commented Nov 30, 2010 at 18:43
  • @Martha - thanks and done. I wasn't sure if that would just get a moderator to look at (and potentially delete) the comment itself, or if it would actually trigger some sort of overall review.
    – Dusty
    Commented Nov 30, 2010 at 18:59
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    As far as the rep is concerned, I wouldn't worry too much. Revenge downvotes are detected and removed by a script that runs daily. (The same goes for upvotes by sockpuppets.) Check your rep report tomorrow.
    – RegDwigнt
    Commented Nov 30, 2010 at 19:07
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    Also, note that deleted answers (and questions) are still visible to diamond moderators, as well as to all normal users with 10.000+ rep points.
    – RegDwigнt
    Commented Nov 30, 2010 at 19:13
  • @RegDwight well that's good to know at least. Thanks
    – Dusty
    Commented Nov 30, 2010 at 19:13
  • @Martha - Thanks for the backup on the question. ++
    – Dusty
    Commented Dec 1, 2010 at 1:07
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    As a followup, the script worked, so no rep harm done at least.
    – Dusty
    Commented Dec 1, 2010 at 15:22
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    Heh. Now he's targeting me. Lovely.
    – Marthaª
    Commented Dec 3, 2010 at 15:43
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    @Martha - Yeah, I noticed it on the trostle question. Tactial downvoting ftl.
    – Dusty
    Commented Dec 3, 2010 at 15:45
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    Please do flag comments like this, as it alerts the mods to each inappropriate comment/answer.
    – Kosmonaut Mod
    Commented Dec 8, 2010 at 15:17
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    If he continues to do this, why not just close his account? Granted he could open another, but if he is not being a "contributing" member, then why allow him to cause such disruptions? At the very least, can his ability to down-vote be revoked?
    – Will
    Commented Dec 13, 2010 at 15:33
  • Closing his account would be a bad idea, for the reason you mentioned; revoking his ability to downvote would seem sensible. With trolls, any site's policy should be damage control. Those scripts are a tremendous instrument. What should be kept in mind is that a troll values his account: that is the only place that you can hurt him, and it should thus be treated with caution, in order to retain something to leverage him into the right behaviour. Never close an account unless there is no alternative, however bad the troll.
    – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica
    Commented Dec 23, 2010 at 0:51

1 Answer 1

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This is a straight quote from RegDwight's comment above:

As far as the rep is concerned, I wouldn't worry too much. Revenge downvotes are detected and removed by a script that runs daily. (The same goes for upvotes by sockpuppets.) Check your rep report tomorrow. – RegDwight♦ Nov 30 '10 at 19:07

I came looking for an answer to this question and felt it deserved to be an actual answer instead of a (highly voted) comment.

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