@quid This room is definitely appropriate for pinging me, when there is no other suitable place for ping. (For example, in cases like this, where you do not want to continue discussion in comments.)

@quid I don't really know. My guess would be yes, but I do not want to investigate in details. But it was the only explanation I was able to think of in the discussion we had, where the OP claimed they never downvote, yet the profile showed downvote.

But more knowledgeable user says that this is not the case.

@dustin I definitely have no interest in trying to identify downvoters. (I can live with a few downvotes. I understand that it might be more frustrating for new users with low rep.)

My question on meta was basically an attempt to create a more constructive version of this question. But I did not link to the other question on purpose, so as not to draw even more attention to one specific incident.

(Maybe more important, I have no time to try to identify downvoters. I can - and should - use my time for more useful things.)

But thanks for you message anyway.

@MartinSleziak was one the post your were planning to upvote this one? If so, I don't know if benefiting this user is the best. I flagged a comment on about every post they were downvoted since they used profanity directed towards the user. Many of their post were carbon copies of already accepted answers as well.

Hence, they are now suspended.

@dustin Yes I have noticed that this particular user was suspended. I did not see the comment you mention.

And yes, I upvoted the answer. (Which does not mean that I agree with use on bad language on MSE. The vote only means that that particular answer seems useful to me.)

@MartinSleziak a very recent drive by downvoting occurred. I linked it to your meta post.

Well, some users argue that downvoting answers in order to make the question auto-deleted is reasonable thing to do. Is it appropriate to downvote answers for the sake of deleting a question?

Of course, we cannot know whether this was the motivation for the downvotes you have mentioned.

@MartinSleziak I have read that and disagree. One shouldn't downvote answers to delete a question. For instance, the linked question, I voted to close due to no work but down voted none.

If you someone wants to get rid of a question, vote to close and then delete. Follow the proper community channels.

And it is also possible that the downvoter does not consider the answer correct: Using Taylor expansion on a limit tagged “without L'Hospital”

@MartinSleziak that was my first read of that thread but I disagree with it. Depending on the Calc book you use Taylor series can be introduced early. For instance, Stewart waits until chapter 12 and Larson, Edwards do it many chapters earlier. Using a Taylor series would depend on the students education but it isn't required that student say I am in chapter blank of blank book so you can't penalize someone for not being all knowning.

Yes, I know that many books use Taylor series even as a definition of $e^x$.

On the other hand, users are free to use their votes the way deem fit. (Within the rules of the site.)

Certainly, I would prefer a downvoter to explain why they consider post incorrect. (If that was a reason for the downvote.) But there is no rule that a downvoter must leave a comment.

@MartinSleziak I think a lot people don't explain because of fear of retaliation.

I do not like downvotes to auto-delete, but other users might have different opinion. And again, as far as I can say, this is - strictly speaking - not against the rules.

And even the intentions of those users might be good - to have a cleaner site, not a homework dump.

You might have noticed on meta:

I did read that.

It seems that some users might be leaving the site for this reason.

I have mixed feelings though.

It is difficult to find some balance.

Some users maybe like lhf and they do not want see their posts deletes. (Which is only natural.)

There was a post by one of the top users, where he was half-threatening to leave the site because of this issue.

If we think in a historical context, what we now call trivial was at one point a research level question. That is to say, to be upset with users now learning some of these (now trivial) concepts for the first time it might seems difficult to them just like it took Gauss, Euler, Fermat, etc more than a day to prove some of their now deemed trivial theorems.

I agree that easier topics probably attract more downvotes.

But even for easy topics OP can show some effort. (At least say what they tried.)

@MartinSleziak we all today, in math, are lucky to have come after those greats. They did all the hard work to allow us the luxury to say a limit is easy.

It seems that even some minimal effort on the OP's side prevents posts from being heavily downvoted/closed.

Of course, work needs to be shown there is no excuse for that.

There was a post that isn't necessarily trivial but not impossible where the poster showed a lot of work and the whole thread was downvoted. I think there were 4-5 answers all different and correct as well.

That's not very nice, certainly.

But my guess is that if the OP showed work and if they were good answers, they also got upvotes from other users.

I have a good feeling that I know who it was in this case due to the discrepancy with the SE system though.

At +5/-1 you get 48 rep points for posting such an answer, which is o.k.

Of course, but unwarranted downvotes is just childish. Why would someone do that?

@dustin I don't know. But I am afraid that there is not much to be done against something like that.

(Other than other users upvoting those posts.)

@MartinSleziak I know. I, unfortunately, have to get back to doing something useful now. See ya.

Bye!

I have tried to explain my view of keeping room alive here and here. Just for me, I should make a note of other opinion.

@MartinSleziak Indeed, it felt quite unlikely to me, too. In the mean time I got the chance to try it even. But, so there was some easy exit for that user that navigated themselves for no reason in that corner (I mean they just could have said they meant the "never" not in a literal way but merely as somewhat rarely). Maybe a good thing after all. Or, perhaps they'll find that user that used their computer. Perhaps it happened while they shouted at the dog that ate their homework.