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I've noticed that after I had downvoted someone, I've gained a couple of downvotes myself.

Even some of my previous positively-voted posts were suddenly downvoted. It's seems unlikely that this is coincidental.

Is there a solution to prevent a certain user(s) from up/down-voting my posts?

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    You are actually mistaken; your Down-votes are from different people
    – Marc Gravell
    Sep 5, 2011 at 16:31
  • @Marc ic. thanks for the clarification =D
    – Pacerier
    Sep 5, 2011 at 16:32
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    Most likely simply a question was tweeted or linked from another post, and a few more people saw it.
    – Marc Gravell
    Sep 5, 2011 at 17:18
  • I'm pretty sure that you can't see who has voted, so it's not "revenge" on you.
    – daviesgeek
    Sep 6, 2011 at 2:33
  • @daviesgeek yes, i would have loved the ability to do so. but when i downvote people i leave comments, so there you have it, the people i've downvoted do know it's me.
    – Pacerier
    Sep 6, 2011 at 10:41
  • Oh, of course, I don't know why I didn't think of that! I do too, so I don't know why I forgot.
    – daviesgeek
    Sep 6, 2011 at 15:33
  • I'm out to get you Pacerier, I've been reading your posts and you sound like an heretic. Whenever I see your name I hit the -1. (okay, I'm not telling the truth as I'm pretty sure that I've not read a single post from you)
    – user1054
    Jul 3, 2012 at 20:34
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    I'm wondering why you've edited this post three and a half years later. Must have been board or something. I don't usually read my years old meta posts.
    – fгedsbend
    May 8, 2015 at 5:56
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    @fredsbend, I don't too. While cruising the internet I tend to stumble upon posts like this, sometimes not even knowing it was my own post. Anyways, feel free to edit. This is a Wiki and without editors, Wikipedia would be dead.
    – Pacerier
    May 25, 2015 at 1:09

3 Answers 3

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The SE engine has safeguards that will spot excessive voting like this and revert them; a few votes, though, cannot be distinguished from regular critique (although the user is always encouraged to leave reasons when down-voting).

If you feel there is established vote abuse, it can be checked and action taken, but please don't do this just because one or two posts are down-voted. Ultimately, the votes are weighted, and one or two up-votes outweigh (in net rep) a good many down-votes.

Flagging one of the affected posts for moderator attention would suffice if it does warrant a peek.

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  • I never have problems with downvotes that have comments saying why it was downvoted. The problem I have is when people downvote posts not based on the content of the post, but the poster itself (personal attack in other words). A large number of these type of down votes do not come with comments (since they wouldn't dare to say "-1 Nice post, but not so nice poster."). Btw is there a cap on the number of downvotes a particular user can give another user?
    – Pacerier
    Sep 5, 2011 at 16:21
  • @Pacerier believe me, I know what you mean :p there isn't a cap as such, but patterns (including quantity) of voting are monitored. I have to be somewhat vague here, I'm afraid.
    – Marc Gravell
    Sep 5, 2011 at 16:24
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There is a wide variety of people here with different opinions about what is good and what is poor content and what are good and bad questions to ask here.

You cannot ban any particular use from participating in the voting process. What kind of voting system only allows votes from a certain sector of constituents anyway?

If you are left feedback in comments, you should take any advice about the quality of your work (and validity of your views) into consideration and improve them if you can but in the end you will just have to accept that not everything will go your way.

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  • In fact it may be fair to ban a certain user from participating in the voting process once it is clear that he is downvoting the post not based on the contents of the post, but rather the poster himself. I never have problems with people who downvote but give a comment explaining why it deserves a downvote.
    – Pacerier
    Sep 5, 2011 at 16:23
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The system is heavily skewed to discourage this kind of behaviour:

  • More than X consecutive votes (within Y minutes) to the same user are rolled back
  • Down voting costs 2 to the receiver but also costs 1 to the giver
  • One up vote is worth 5 down votes in terms of reputation

All these make any attempt to serial down vote someone quite insignificant.

In other words, while it is theoretically possible that someone has down voted you for personal reasons, you can simply ignore them :-)

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  • Heys cool =D I like the downvotes only costing 2 votes. However the problem is not really reputation per se, but rather the downvote itself.
    – Pacerier
    Sep 10, 2011 at 14:10

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