I happened to notice, that yesterday I received 20 simultaneous downvotes across 10 of my questions, all in the same minute.
I am curious what could have caused this?
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4$\begingroup$ On top of the already given answer, worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/help/serial-voting-reversed $\endgroup$– L.Dutch ModCommented Jun 24, 2019 at 5:17
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1$\begingroup$ I had this happen a day or two ago, too, but not to this extent. I'm glad HDE226868's looking into it. $\endgroup$– JBHCommented Jun 25, 2019 at 18:19
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1$\begingroup$ It happens. I got a reversal once on Writing in the other direction. My spouse and I are both on the stacks though he isn't as active as I am. I had been bugging him for a week or more to check out my questions during a question push and he finally did, upvoting 7 (including some answers) in 5 mins (I didn't ask him to upvote, just read, but I don't tell him not to either). The system didn't like that and I lost all the points (no other penalties, as it was not intentional fraud or attacks, etc). While 10 downvotes in 1 min is pretty extreme, it's not impossible to do manually. $\endgroup$– CynCommented Jun 26, 2019 at 15:41
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1$\begingroup$ @Cyn oops, missed the "not*. Sorry about that. $\endgroup$– VLAZCommented Jul 12, 2019 at 15:40
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1 Answer
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I've done some digging with the mod tools, and I'm ~110% sure that you were a victim of serial downvoting. I've taken action in reponse.
Now, I can't manually reverse the votes, but the system should invalidate them within 24 hours - probably less, given that's already been about 20 already, and the relevant automatic scripts run regularly. It's certainly enough to trigger an automatic reversal. We'll keep an eye on this; if you experience targeted downvoting again, let us know with a custom mod flag on one of your posts.
answered Jun 24, 2019 at 0:40
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$\begingroup$ Thank you. I suspected that might be the case. However, would this not require two separate accounts to be coordinated in order to downvote twice on each question? I wonder what I've done to draw someone's ire? $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 24, 2019 at 0:43
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3$\begingroup$ @ArkensteinXII It's only one vote per question; you just lost two points per downvote. Upvotes are +5 or +10; downvotes are -2. $\endgroup$– HDE 226868 ModCommented Jun 24, 2019 at 0:44
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$\begingroup$ Oh, that is good to know! Thanks! Out of curiosity, what differentiates between a +10 and a +5 upvote? $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 24, 2019 at 0:45
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5$\begingroup$ @ArkensteinXII Votes on questions get you +5; answers get you +10. Also, I completed the aforementioned digging and did get some more info that confirms my guess, so I'm handling what I can. $\endgroup$– HDE 226868 ModCommented Jun 24, 2019 at 0:48
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$\begingroup$ @HDE226868 I've experienced the exact same thing, care to glance my way? Do you need screenshots and urls or is the arsenal of tools at hand sufficient? $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 24, 2019 at 1:59
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4$\begingroup$ @DonQualm Yes, I'm already aware that multiple users experienced the same thing as Arkenstein, including you, and I took care of the whole thing. I think my advice is the same - wait to see if the reversal's done within a day or so; if not, let us know. And yes, the mod tools were enough to figure it out; they gave me a lot of info. $\endgroup$– HDE 226868 ModCommented Jun 24, 2019 at 2:01
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$\begingroup$ Would it be completely inappropriate for you to tell us the approximate IP range that the user/s might fall into? @HDE226868 $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 24, 2019 at 2:04
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4$\begingroup$ @DonQualm Yes, I definitely can't tell you that. That's very explicitly restricted PII. $\endgroup$– HDE 226868 ModCommented Jun 24, 2019 at 2:04
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1$\begingroup$ @HDE226868 Votes reversed, sense of fairness - at equilibrium. PII is sacred to me. Confidence restored, all is quiet in the jungle. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 24, 2019 at 3:08
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$\begingroup$ Is there any way to tell if this was a computerized attack? Downvoting that many questions within the same minute is honestly impressive, cruelty aside. $\endgroup$– DubukayCommented Jun 24, 2019 at 5:17
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2$\begingroup$ @Dubukay It's actually not that hard to do, since the SE database of questions, answers, users, etc. is (largely) public access. Just write a query to retrieve posts belonging to a given user on a given site, then issue downvote requests for those posts. Someone could, theoretically, open multiple tabs and scroll to the target post on each, then rapidly move from tab to tab joyfully clicking the downvote option, but it'd be easier to write a script to do it, especially if one wanted to target multiple users. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 24, 2019 at 12:39