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After a question was recently closed the poster of said question started downvoting posts of everybody participating in the closure of his question.

Is such behavior considered appropriate? If not is there anything other users should do if such behavior is noticed?

In case anybody wonder how I could deduce what had happened, this is what I saw: Within the first 10 minutes after the question was closed each person participating in the closure had one old post downvoted. That does not look like a coincidence at all. Moreover the reputation of the person who had asked the closed question had dropped by as many points as the number of answers among the downvoted posts. (I can provide a link to the closed question if really necessary, but I think it might be better if I leave that out.)

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  • Link to the question?
    – EEAA Mod
    Commented Apr 18, 2016 at 17:43
  • @EEAA serverfault.com/q/771169/214507
    – kasperd
    Commented Apr 18, 2016 at 17:45
  • 1
    I don't have time to do research now, but in short, hopefully the serial dv algorithm will catch this and reverse the votes.
    – EEAA Mod
    Commented Apr 18, 2016 at 17:51
  • Are you sure that's the right question? I could not find a bunch of people who had participated in that question and been downvoted elsewhere.
    – Michael Hampton Mod
    Commented Apr 18, 2016 at 17:58
  • @MichaelHampton I can confirm I got a downvote (on serverfault.com/questions/10854/…) around the same time as the poster of that question's little rage fit.
    – ceejayoz
    Commented Apr 18, 2016 at 17:59
  • @ceejayoz You appear to be the only one. I could not find anyone else.
    – Michael Hampton Mod
    Commented Apr 18, 2016 at 18:00
  • @MichaelHampton No look at serverfault.com/users/118258/hopelessn00b?tab=reputation serverfault.com/users/584/ceejayoz?tab=reputation serverfault.com/users/214507/kasperd?tab=reputation serverfault.com/users/8897/sven?tab=reputation all four shows a downvote at that time.
    – kasperd
    Commented Apr 18, 2016 at 18:01
  • @MichaelHampton HopelessN00b got a DV on serverfault.com/questions/415533/… and kasperd got a DV on serverfault.com/questions/595366/…. All three DVs took place 57 minutes ago.
    – ceejayoz
    Commented Apr 18, 2016 at 18:02
  • 9
    Ohh, I see. The downvotes are on everyone who closed the question. I was looking at the commenters.
    – Michael Hampton Mod
    Commented Apr 18, 2016 at 18:03
  • Yeah, the close voters. One for Sven at serverfault.com/questions/33977/192-168-1-x-more-exploitable/… as well.
    – ceejayoz
    Commented Apr 18, 2016 at 18:03
  • 2
    @EEAA Unless they've updated it significantly, the serial d/v script won't catch this kind of retaliatory voting. Deleting the account would reverse the votes, though. :)
    – HopelessN00b
    Commented Apr 18, 2016 at 18:19
  • @HopelessN00b Ahh, ok. Good to know.
    – EEAA Mod
    Commented Apr 18, 2016 at 18:19
  • 3
    Maybe we should take him up on his word. Quoting his comment (deleted by me): You may go ahead and close/delete my profile who cares!!
    – Sven Mod
    Commented Apr 18, 2016 at 19:12
  • @Sven Sure sounds like permission to me. Hell, given his last name, that even sounds like the way people who share his presumptive homeland tend to phrase requests, so I'd choose to interpret it as such.
    – HopelessN00b
    Commented Apr 18, 2016 at 19:24
  • @Sven can you unblock it so we can keep down voting? Just it seems to get to him and i think it would be funny to exhaust his rep purrty please cute kitten face
    – Ash
    Commented Apr 19, 2016 at 11:20

1 Answer 1

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After a question was recently closed the poster of said question started downvoting posts of everybody participating in the closure of his question.

Is such behavior considered appropriate?

No, it's not. Report it (like you did with this thread), and the mods will take a look. It's been a while, but I recall there being a suspension category for this kind of behavior. He certainly wouldn't be first to get a time-out for retaliatory voting.

On a related note, this type of poster is just another reason to think twice about commenting on bad, downvoted questions. You end up becoming the target of some asshole's misplaced anger a lot more often than anything constructive comes of it. Better to just downvote, (and/or) vote to close, shake your head at the fail and move on.

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  • 3
    Not sure about the last sentence. Just down-vote is anonymous, but does not provide any constructive feedback. It should not be used by default. There are such people who behave this way, but still most of them are eager to learn and improve (at least a bit) and just down-vote is frustrating.
    – Jakuje
    Commented May 2, 2016 at 8:27

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