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I've recently noted that all the correct and helpful answers to this question are downvoted by a single-person. I don't have any proof but, I am pretty sure that the downvotes are given by a single person. Whoever has done this is, trying to game with the system. The only reason is that (s)he wants to provoke the auto-deletion.

There is a infinitesimal probability that the downvotes are not casted by an individual. The purpose of my, bringing this issue up is that the moderators--if they can't see who voted then the developers--should find out whether the downvoter has done this on other PSQ's or not. If that user is found guilty then he should be straight-forwardly suspended for a long long time.

It takes some effort and time to write an answer. Downvoting correct answer(s) is a narrow-minded practice--IMO.

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    $\begingroup$ This has been happening for a long time, ever since the massive deletion campaign gained steam a half a year ago. One way to counteract this is to upvote more (and vote to reopen and undelete, etc) $\endgroup$
    – Bill Dubuque
    Dec 27, 2014 at 18:09
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    $\begingroup$ I can see intrinsic reasons to downvote some or all of these posts. I am tempted to do so and post comments alongside. I do not do so now as it would be a "meta effect." $\endgroup$
    – quid Mod
    Dec 27, 2014 at 18:22
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    $\begingroup$ Please take a look at this and this $\endgroup$
    – Aditya Hase
    Dec 27, 2014 at 18:29
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    $\begingroup$ @user31782 what is a "technical mistake" A clear-cut mathematical error is really not the only intrinsic reason to downvote. The answers are not very good, and some even bad. I could detail why, but I also have other things to do than justifying my hypothetical downvotes. (If you really want I will do so later.) $\endgroup$
    – quid Mod
    Dec 27, 2014 at 18:35
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    $\begingroup$ @user31782 Are you talking about this kind of questions? If so, Are you not taking the risk by answering low-quality questions? $\endgroup$
    – Aditya Hase
    Dec 27, 2014 at 18:37
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    $\begingroup$ "Every Mathematical text should be judged by its technical accuracy--only." This is an extreme opinion, not shared by a great number of entities publishing mathematics. $\endgroup$
    – quid Mod
    Dec 27, 2014 at 18:55
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    $\begingroup$ Normally, they solicit the opinion of experts. Further, normally, the identity of these experts remains unknown to the author. Sometimes the author receives a reason for a non-favorable decision, sometimes not. And technical correctnes is really not the only or even main thing the expert is asked about; relevance, originality, clarity of the exposition, are important too. $\endgroup$
    – quid Mod
    Dec 27, 2014 at 19:01
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    $\begingroup$ I was not talking about SE sites, but rather about the way most (respected) scholarly journals and book publishers operate. You are entitled to your opinion, but as I said it is an extreme one. [There are many things one might find problematic about math publishing but to judge math on technical merits only, especially in a context that is mainly about teaching, is really not reasonable.] $\endgroup$
    – quid Mod
    Dec 27, 2014 at 19:13
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    $\begingroup$ @user31782 Hm? If it is a duplicate, it is not original. These two don't go together. $\endgroup$
    – Daniel Fischer
    Dec 27, 2014 at 19:22
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    $\begingroup$ That doesn't matter, if it's a known duplicate, a paper won't be accepted. Note that "A new proof of an old result" is not a duplicate. But "I independently found the same proof that Hilbert found a hundred years ago" will not be accepted as a paper. $\endgroup$
    – Daniel Fischer
    Dec 27, 2014 at 19:26
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    $\begingroup$ Papers are rejected or put into a revision process on the grounds that they are not sufficiently relevant, interesting, well-explained, and so on. This happens all the time. $\endgroup$
    – quid Mod
    Dec 27, 2014 at 19:31
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    $\begingroup$ Since my comments are being deleted by the moderater, I'm deleting all my comments(off topic--Idk?). $\endgroup$
    – user103816
    Dec 27, 2014 at 21:07
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    $\begingroup$ For thise who are not sensitized yet (or are desensitized by now) to Bill's disingenuous way of framing things, I'd like to clarify his comment the massive deletion campaign gained steam from above. As you can see at the link, he is referring to "a massive campaign by a single user," so it is actually not the conspiracy of any real size the description makes it out to be, and it is hard to say renegade actions like this could "gain steam" enough to make trouble. It would be fair to guess in this case that it was done by the same (or a similar) user, but the added drama can be disregarded. $\endgroup$
    – rschwieb
    Dec 28, 2014 at 4:31
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    $\begingroup$ There used to be a third answer that got, I assume, self-deleted in the interim. That one, by the way, was even wrong in a technical sense (no equivalences, just implications). $\endgroup$
    – quid Mod
    Dec 28, 2014 at 12:00
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    $\begingroup$ I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's about a deleted question. $\endgroup$
    – user223391
    Oct 11, 2016 at 21:03

2 Answers 2

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I don't have any proof but, I am pretty sure that the downvotes are given by a single person. Whoever has done this is, trying to game with the system. The only reason is that (s)he wants to provoke the auto-deletion.

You not only don't have any proof, you don't understand how auto-deletion works. Fortunately, I have a reference for this:

If the question is more than 30 days old, and ...

  • has −1 or lower score
  • has no answers
  • is not locked

...or...

  • it was closed and migrated to a different site

... it will be automatically deleted.

If the question is more than 365 days old, and ...

  • has a score of 0 or a score of 1 with a deleted owner
  • has no answers
  • is not locked
  • has a viewcount <= the age of the question in days times 1.5
  • has 1 or 0 comments

... it will be automatically deleted.

These checks are run every week across all sites.

If the question was closed more than 9 days ago, and ...

  • not closed as a duplicate
  • has a score of 0 or less
  • is not locked
  • has no answers with a score > 0
  • has no accepted answer
  • has no pending reopen votes
  • has not been edited in the past 9 days

... it will be automatically deleted

As you can clearly see, the question you're referencing doesn't qualify for auto-deletion. Furthermore, even if someone tried to make it qualify by downvoting all of the answers, you could single-handedly thwart their efforts by upvoting them. Of course, you should only do this if you thought the answers were useful...

...and if you thought the answers were useful, you should probably try to salvage the question as well. Notice that it's currently closed? That means it is eligible for deletion. Whenever you see a closed question, you should think to yourself "this question may be deleted at any time for the reason stated below it" - that's essentially what it means. Even if it doesn't qualify for auto-deletion, there's nothing stopping trusted members of the site from just deleting it manually - which they can do regardless of answer score as long as it is closed.

So while you're here hand-wringing over a supposed voter who you cannot prove exist, the fact remains that this question and its answers may be removed at any time regardless of the existence of your voter.

...Unless you do something about it. You could...

  • Edit the question to fix any issues with it. This may be laborious, but the option is available to anyone reading it. If you or anyone else sees value in that question, then you should fix the problems stated below it.

  • Vote to reopen the question. You haven't earned the privilege to do this yet, but nothing's stopping you from doing so. If you really care about this questions or others like it, earning the privilege to reopen would be a much better use of your time than throwing out unfounded accusations here.

  • Post a compelling justification for reopening here. More than enough people read this meta site to easily reopen any question they feel is worth keeping around; all you need to do is convince them. Conspiracy theories tend to not be all that persuasive, but if there's value in those answers then you should be able to explain why the question should be preserved. Do it calmly and clearly; you only need to convince 5 privileged users.

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    $\begingroup$ "you don't understand how auto-deletion works"-- I very well know how autodeletion works. Making all the answer's score <= 0, is the easiest way to delete it in 9 days. "the question you're referencing doesn't qualify for auto-deletion" It doesn't now but it was when I started this meta post(IIRC all the answers had 0 score). The only point of my question is that the SE should keep a keen eye on that kind of users. It is simply a vote-fraud. $\endgroup$
    – user103816
    Dec 27, 2014 at 20:49
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    $\begingroup$ How is it fraud when folks vote the way they wish to on the posts they find on their own, but not fraud when they vote the way you wish them to on posts you bring their attention to, @user31782? This is silly; fraud is deception, voting fraud is deceptive voting - that is, using false accounts or accomplices to deceive others as to the usefulness of posts. If I think the answers to a question are not useful, then surely it would be more dishonest of me to not downvote them, yet you assert that expressing my opinion in this way would be fraud! $\endgroup$
    – Shog9
    Dec 27, 2014 at 23:19
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    $\begingroup$ It is a vote fraud; they ain't downvoting 'cause the answers are not useful. They are downvoting intentionally to provoke the auto-deletion. If those answers are not useful in some sense, then in the same sense every answer on this website is not useful to him(or her). Did (s)he downvoted on all the answers of that kind--No!. That said, what is useful or not is subjective. Even if something is not useful to someone he should not downvote technically(Mathematically) correct answers. $\endgroup$
    – user103816
    Dec 28, 2014 at 8:13
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    $\begingroup$ You're making a lot of assumptions about the motivations of someone you don't know and can't even be certain actually exists... Starting with the assumption that they saw the answers as useful (or at least didn't see them useless) and then decided they should be deleted anyway. Do you have anything to back this up? Anything at all? Perhaps you'd like to take the advice I offered above and explain in your question why you found those answers useful...? $\endgroup$
    – Shog9
    Dec 28, 2014 at 17:14
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    $\begingroup$ I propose it as a Conjecture. $\endgroup$
    – user103816
    Dec 29, 2014 at 11:05
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What do you find actionable here? My understanding is that, with the narrow exception of "spite" downvotes of a single user, people's vote totals are theirs to do with as they wish. While categorically downvoting all answers to PSQs may or may not be helpful behavior, it's not against policy.

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