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If users detect the presence of serial downvoters on ELU how should they behave? Are they supposed to post comments to the downvoters telling them to refrain from their improper activity or should they just inform mods who will take care of the issue? (btw what's the best way to contact mods in this respect?). I couldn't find specific guidance about this problem in the Help Center, or maybe I just didnt find the relative rules (sorry for that).

To sum up, what is the recommended course of action for users to deal with serial downvoters?

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  • You should flag the answer for mod's attention and explain. I think this question was asked and answered before.
    – user140086
    Nov 25, 2016 at 8:41
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    I've been looking at your reputation history, and it certainly appears to me that a serial downvoter has set their target on you. Anyone who repeatedly downvotes the same user's contributions is breaking SE policies. Could be that they will stop temporarily, especially if they have seen this post, but they might continue when they think the dust has settled. You have to report this to the mods, serial DV is always anti-social behaviour.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Nov 26, 2016 at 7:36
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    In fact, I would go further and say that serial downvoting, to the extent that it is based on personal animosity or some ill-conceived notion of gaming the system, is one of the most intellectually dishonest behaviors— and certainly the pettiest—that a person can exhibit at this site. The integrity of our site (grandiose though that phrase may sound) depends on honest up- and downvoting—which is to say voting on the merits of the question or answer, and not on one's relationship to its poster.
    – Sven Yargs
    Nov 26, 2016 at 21:27
  • @SvenYargs I have seen many of your posts constantly downvoted without clear reasons and as a user who has experienced the same issue in the past and is experiencing it even presently, I think it is somewhat natural that there are uses who serially downvote posts regardless of the merits of a post. They are human beings and this community is run by human beings who know how to game the system. I think blind upvoting is worse than serial downvoting on this site. At least serial-downvoters know they will get caught if they downvote too many post. Blind upvoters don't.
    – user140086
    Nov 27, 2016 at 11:31
  • @Rathony - serial downvoting is preferable to serial upvoting? I think they are both bad practices that create distortions to the system. Serial upvoters don't get caught? Are you sure?
    – user66974
    Nov 27, 2016 at 12:14
  • @Rathony: There are times when I have no idea why site participants downvoted one of my answers—but in those instances I suspect that the downvoters simply didn't like my conclusion or thought I didn't stick to the question asked or felt that I shouldn't have answered the question (because it was "bad") or considered my answer excessively long. As far as I know, I've never had someone downvote several of my answers in a short period of time (the situation JOSH is asking about), but I did once have someone upvote a series of my answers in very short order; those votes were later reversed. ...
    – Sven Yargs
    Nov 27, 2016 at 17:30
  • ... Every now and then I've received a downvote in a situation where all existing answers—or all existing answers but one—are downvoted in quick succession. This is what I mean by "serial downvoting to game the system"—but the downvoting in this case is horizontal (affecting multiple answerers) rather than vertical (down one person's list of answers), so it's trivial to any one answerer. And even when this type of across-the-board downvoting occurs, it may sometimes just express the downvoter's irritation with all the answers, and not be a ploy to promote a favored answer as much as possible.
    – Sven Yargs
    Nov 27, 2016 at 17:37

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Help Center > Reputation & Moderation states:

If you see very unusual votes being targeted at your account, don't worry about it. You should wait at least 24 hours after noticing before becoming concerned, as the automated system should detect it and reverse it for you. If, after 24 hours, you do not see any fix to your reputation, please contact the team using the "contact us" form located at the bottom of any page.

Related Stack Exchange Meta post:

What can I do if I'm the victim of serial downvoting?

  1. Do NOTHING. The daily vote anomaly script will pick it up and your rep will be recalculated automatically.

  2. If after 36 hours (give the script time to run) you still see a problem, then flag one of your posts and ask a moderator to look into the anomalous voting patterns.

  3. If it still hasn't been corrected, contact the SE team via the "contact us" link at the bottom of any page on the site.

Based on my experience, I flagged one of my own answers which was downvoted and asked a moderator to investigate it. I guess it led to suspension of one user who was serially downvoting my answers and others and surprisingly he had a few different accounts.