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My reputation has been increased several times when a (down-voting) user was suspended or deleted from a StackExchange site. How can I find the (former) identity of the suspended user? This will help me understand which of my contended answers were correct, which user disagreement trended my way, and so forth.

So: here is a screenshot (from today) of the pulldown message menu:

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A user was removed and my score decreased by 5 points. Who was that user? Which one of my questions lost points because that user was removed?

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    $\begingroup$ archive.org may be helpful. Enter math.stackexchange.com/users/{user ID} $\endgroup$ Apr 2, 2019 at 2:05
  • $\begingroup$ @YuiToCheng: But how do I know which (deleted) user ID to enter/search? $\endgroup$ Apr 2, 2019 at 2:17
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    $\begingroup$ Some mistaken ideas, Suspensions of accounts do not cancel votes. A deletion will, unless the user has voted a lot. But, when a relatively inactive accont gets deleted the votes are invalidated also (or when an account is judged to have been involved in voting irregularities). The SE staff can also manually invalidate votes, if there is sufficient evidence. The bar for that is rather high. But, Im'm a bit puzzled by your last sentence. Don't you know which of your answers are correct? $\endgroup$ Apr 2, 2019 at 3:44
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    $\begingroup$ @JyrkiLahtonen: The case I have in mind is that I believe my answers to numerous questions are correct, but several (say 10) have each received a down-vote, over a long period of several months. Today I am notified that some user was suspended and my reputation received a small boost. Which of my questions from long ago were the source of this bump in my reputation? Which user was suspended? How would I ever find these (given I cannot even remember which of my answers received a down vote)? $\endgroup$ Apr 2, 2019 at 3:54
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    $\begingroup$ If some votes on your posts have been cancelled recently (this week), you might be able to check votes (or only downvotes) on your posts using SEDE now and then a week later (after the next update of the data) and compare the two. In that way you could find the posts where number of votes changed. $\endgroup$ Apr 2, 2019 at 5:15
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    $\begingroup$ Here is a post on MathOverflow Meta which is a bit related: Is it possible to know the list of removed users? $\endgroup$ Apr 2, 2019 at 5:16
  • $\begingroup$ Some SEDE queries which might be used to compare on which posts number of votes changed (if you run them on data in two different weeks): downvotes, down- and upvotes, scores, ... $\endgroup$ Apr 2, 2019 at 5:46
  • $\begingroup$ ...scores of questions or scores of answers. $\endgroup$ Apr 2, 2019 at 5:47
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    $\begingroup$ @MartinSleziak: Helps... but not really. How would I ever remember the relevant score from months ago? Was it 3? or 4? or 5?.. Won't help me find the problem whose score was lowered by 1 by the user who down-voted my answer. $\endgroup$ Apr 2, 2019 at 7:22
  • $\begingroup$ @DavidG.Stork I thought this happened recently. (Which is the situation for which I suggest using SEDE - if the reversal happened after the last update of data, i.e., since Sunday.) In any case, feel free to ping me in chat if needed - perhaps I can clarify a bit more what I meant. (Or you could clarify your question and explain why comparing the numbers from this week and from the next week does not work for you.) $\endgroup$ Apr 2, 2019 at 7:27
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    $\begingroup$ I should probably have include also a link to the post on Meta Stack Exchange: Is there a way to know which user was removed? And also to older similar post on this meta: Can I know where I lost my reputation? $\endgroup$ Apr 2, 2019 at 8:03
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    $\begingroup$ @MartinSleziak: Your first link is precisely my question. The answer (alas) is "no." I do, however, think there are good reasons to know who was deleted. Sometimes they were right to downvote my answer; sometimes they were wrong to downvote my answer. Knowing that someone "wrong" was deleted gives greater confidence in the whole StackExchange. $\endgroup$ Apr 2, 2019 at 8:14
  • $\begingroup$ @DavidG.Stork Sorry, I misinterpreted the title as finding the former identity of, say "user147263". Of course, this assumes you know the ID of the deleted users. $\endgroup$ Apr 2, 2019 at 10:28

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User was removed vs. Voting corrected

The message you received means that someone deleted their profile here or had a sockpuppet profile deleted. If you click on the link in your reputation history, it takes you to the explanation in the help center. It's worth remembering, many of these vote removals will have been from users who chose to remove their account for a plethora of reasons, most of which are personal and unrelated to moderation. That's likely what happened in this case.

If targeted voting was corrected, the message says "voting corrected" with a link to the serial voting page. In the case of suspensions, you'd see the "voting corrected" message, not the "User was removed" event. These are events where we (or the system) invalidates votes from one user to another.

Who voted for you is immaterial.

You never get to know who voted for you unless they specifically tell you. Votes are private. If we tell you whose votes were removed, you know who voted for you. This is explained in the answers to the related Meta Stack Exchange question.

On top of that, we believe that moderation is between the moderators and the user who has been moderated. Knowing who had their account deleted or got suspended is not information we believe you need to have, which is why you're not shown it.

Which posts were voted on is hidden by design.

Because it's possible that users may know which user had votes invalidated or an account removed, revealing which posts were voted on reveals their voting history, which is a big problem. As such, we can not show you this information.

But in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter. You say yourself that you don't know the scores of all of your posts, so one point either way isn't going to change that. It's about the aggregate score, which is why that's what you see by default. Any user can only impact each of your posts by one point. In the grand scheme of things, you can assume that a post with only one downvote and many upvotes is a good post, just as a post with many downvotes and one upvote is a bad post.

If a post has equal numbers of up- and downvotes (assuming that number is more than one or two each way), it probably has some issues that could be addressed and one fewer vote in either direction doesn't change that, either.

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