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For the past 24 hours at least, someone has been upvoting questions without discretion on ServerFault. At first, I started to downvote the particularly heinous misappropriation. At this point, I'm less willing to take the reputation hit.

Is there a remedy to this activity or is it simply a side effect of the design?

It's difficult to illustrate the activity for the purpose of discussion. Nevertheless, I frequent the site and actively notice trends based on observation.

As of 5/23/2010 at 11:00AM EDT approximately over the past 24 hours:

A bunch of current examples:

It's ridiculous to continue listing.

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  • Some examples please? And: upvoting bad posts, or upvoting a lot of good posts?
    – Arjan
    May 23, 2010 at 14:58
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    (See also Vote Fraud and You.)
    – Arjan
    May 23, 2010 at 14:59
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    That's an informative reference Arjan, thanks. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to address this current issue. I've also edited to provide more details.
    – Warner
    May 23, 2010 at 15:09
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    It's widely held to be a symptom of the Electorate badge. There was a question/topic here about it, but I can't find it. Some people even admitted that at the end of the day they use up all their leftover votes by opening up and upvoting random questions with +1 or more. I hate that badge.
    – Aarobot
    May 23, 2010 at 15:23
  • That thought crossed my mind as well. It sounds like there's no moderator remedy, which is unfortunate. It's increasing the noise ratio. Ironically, I'm 52 votes from it but legitimately.
    – Warner
    May 23, 2010 at 15:27
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    @Aarobot, could that be Is the Electorate Badge Working?? (The quote I now go to Stack Overflow daily and expend my entire vote amount on questions. I don't vote on answers any more. was not serious, if I understand correctly.)
    – Arjan
    May 23, 2010 at 16:42
  • @Arjan: That might have been it. The question itself is about something slightly different but the answers do get into a lot of what I mentioned.
    – Aarobot
    May 23, 2010 at 17:26
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    Keep in mind, you shouldn't be downvoting unless the questions legitimately deserve downvotes. Just because someone upvoted them unreasonably, doesn't mean you should downvote them unreasonably.
    – devinb
    May 23, 2010 at 17:58
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    They don't deserve > 0. >0 indicates better than the average.
    – Warner
    May 23, 2010 at 19:42
  • @Warner: one of the classic problems with question voting. Is the question before you 'what score does this question deserve?' or 'do I like it enough to add +1?'
    – Rosinante
    May 23, 2010 at 21:46
  • I wouldn't say this is a "classic problem" as much as it's a flaw that should be addressed. Thankfully, the person doing it appears to have stopped. However, earlier today nearly every question was voted at least +1.
    – Warner
    May 23, 2010 at 22:13

1 Answer 1

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This was probably an effect of the electorate badge as people tried to meet the 25% votes on questions requirement.

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