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Of the 50 questions on the front page a few minutes ago, all but 4 have downvotes. (Many also have upvotes, of course, and many have more upvotes than downvotes.)

This doesn't seem normal to me. Is it normal? If not, what is happening?

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    $\begingroup$ I noticed something similar a day or two ago, but didn't check the numbers at that time. $\endgroup$
    – user21467
    Commented Jun 1, 2015 at 0:46
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    $\begingroup$ Many of the answers to these questions are getting downvoted, too, even though they are correct...what's going on? $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 1, 2015 at 0:58
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    $\begingroup$ And usually, it's the same number of down votes on each page. I encountered 2 more often than not. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 1, 2015 at 2:24
  • $\begingroup$ That's the third time I encountered this in this week. But I doubt if anything can be done. $\endgroup$
    – user99914
    Commented Jun 1, 2015 at 3:23
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    $\begingroup$ It would be good to supplement this with a screenshot. $\endgroup$
    – Asaf Karagila Mod
    Commented Jun 1, 2015 at 3:51
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    $\begingroup$ I can confirm changed behaviour. For the last 6 days, the number of downvotes on questions per day has increased by more than 50%. I do not know what to make of this. $\endgroup$
    – davidlowryduda Mod
    Commented Jun 1, 2015 at 3:57
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    $\begingroup$ Related post: meta.math.stackexchange.com/questions/20550/… $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 1, 2015 at 4:58
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    $\begingroup$ Let's just say that I have a fairly good idea who it was. The tools moderators have access to point in a certain direction (that just happens to be on my list of usual suspects). I'm not experienced enough in hunting down such patterns, so I wait for other moderators to take a look at the evidence. We may also need to ask CMs to take a look, because the mods don't have precise enough tools to find the smoking gun. $\endgroup$
    – Jyrki Lahtonen Mod
    Commented Jun 1, 2015 at 6:46
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    $\begingroup$ @mixedmath could you give a rough absolute number, too? $\endgroup$
    – quid
    Commented Jun 1, 2015 at 14:20
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    $\begingroup$ I just got "+2 User was removed", which happens rarely enough to be an evidence that someone took action on this. $\endgroup$
    – user147263
    Commented Jun 1, 2015 at 19:38
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    $\begingroup$ Just discovered that a user was removed...... Um $\endgroup$
    – user99914
    Commented Jun 2, 2015 at 4:22
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    $\begingroup$ The moderators agreed that the pair of users I suspected were behind this. One was a sock puppet of the other. I deleted the puppet and suspended the main account. If we nailed the right duo, then the deletion of the puppet should lead to +2s for many people who were initially hit with a downvote. Looks like that is exactly what happened! Note: I did not delete the puppeteer. I want to discuss the best course of action (re that user) with the SE staff. I will request them to annul the downvotes cast by that account, but need a bit more time to formulate that request. Sorry about the delay. $\endgroup$
    – Jyrki Lahtonen Mod
    Commented Jun 2, 2015 at 11:15
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    $\begingroup$ @JyrkiLahtonen : No problem about the delay. Thanks for letting us know what's going on. $\endgroup$
    – user21467
    Commented Jun 2, 2015 at 11:17
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    $\begingroup$ OTOH. If we are the detectives, prosecutors, members of the jury, the judge and the executioner could something possibly ever go wrong with that? Thankfully we're not in a criminal court. IMO a better analogue is that to a home plate umpire making the calls the best they see. "OUT!" $\endgroup$
    – Jyrki Lahtonen Mod
    Commented Jun 3, 2015 at 6:32
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    $\begingroup$ @Mark: To prevent political games, moderators are elected until they leave on their own, or leave not on their own. But they do not get re-elected after a term (well, generally, I suppose someone stepping down for some reason can run again after some time if the reasons make sense). The moderators get our gratitude, although not from everyone, and mostly a lot of fire on when someone deleted a comment, locks a post, or un/delete something disputed. Then we like to forget that they too are people who do volunteer work for this community... at least until someone reminds that in the comments. $\endgroup$
    – Asaf Karagila Mod
    Commented Jun 8, 2015 at 9:41

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