It appears that @hippietrail's and @JoFrhwld's reputation got reduced today (and mine). What caused this reduction?
3 Answers
We have checks that detect improper voting. If this is detected, then a reputation recalc is done. Looking at user history, I see a rep recalc happened for all three users mentioned in this post.
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@LouisRhys: Anomalous voting patterns. See blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/03/more-voting-anomalies Oct 11, 2011 at 17:06
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This answer is unclear. Are you saying that those who noticed a reduction in reputation were likely voting improperly?– MitchOct 11, 2011 at 21:17
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@Mitch I think the post is mostly referring to sockpuppet accounts that are created just to vote up the main account's posts. I'm pretty sure I don't own any sockpuppet account here, so it might be a mistake in the algorithm or a case of somebody else's sockpuppet which happened to upvote me as well (and since all its votes got cancelled, my rep got affected) Oct 12, 2011 at 1:50
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@Mitch no, the improper votes are removed from the target user and then the target user's rep is recalc'd to adjust the rep to where it should be without the improper votes. Oct 12, 2011 at 1:52
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@Rebecca: so Louis is right? its a third unknown party doing inappropriate upvoting of many people which is then removed?– MitchOct 12, 2011 at 2:19
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Ah so there were people who weren't us who had sockpuppet accounts which voted us up and after discovery of the sockpuppets those votes they had given us were removed and hence our reps recalculated? That sounds like a pretty good reason thanks for clearing it up (-: Oct 12, 2011 at 8:45
Actually I have a different new answer. I think there really is a bug. If I check my reputation tab on my network profile it lists me as having more rep on linguistics than I do here now and also more than I had at the high-point about midnight last night!
Something must be wrong after all.
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@RebeccaChernoff: Exactly why it works as proof that the rep was higher at caching time. Oct 12, 2011 at 8:43
Actually mine mostly went up today except for -2 due to a downvote on my question about alternative analyses of Japanese postpositions as case endings.
It did go down a few days ago though because I put two 100-point bounties on questions. Yes I would've been higher up the "leaderboard" if I hadn't placed several bounties already.
No you're right, I was on 1377
late last night!
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Our SE's area51 page (usually only refreshed once in a while) shows says that your rep is 1,377, me 1,225 and Jo 1,010 and the actual reps are lower now. I didn't put any bounty today or yesterday, and I don't think Jo did either Oct 9, 2011 at 7:52
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Oh yes you're right! I do remember I was on
1377
around midnight last night since it's almost leetspeak for leet! That means mine went down-75
. Did the others go down by such a round figure do you know? Oct 9, 2011 at 7:57 -
I don't know, my rep increased since so I am not sure how much my rep was originally reduced. @JoFrhwld's point was reduced by either 50, 60, or 70 (He gained 2x +10 yesterday, no rep today, and point difference from Area51 is 50 now Oct 9, 2011 at 8:16
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Actually, check around if all your questions and answers are still in tact. Around a week ago I noticed one of my answers had been auto-demoted to a comment, which I found a bit rude since there are plenty of other answers here which were further from answering the question than mine. Anyway that could result in rep loss and I don't think there's a notification system for it. If no SE people respond here, try meta.SO but be prepared for greater levels of anal retention (-; Oct 9, 2011 at 8:21
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I don't remember all my questions and answers, lol. Actually I don't really mind, just want to know what the reason was. Oct 9, 2011 at 8:24
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I think there could be a bug or missing feature though so the SE community would benefit from being told your findings I believe. Oct 9, 2011 at 8:32
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