The Water Cooler

2:36 AM

So, I took a look at my rep earned yesterday. Despite getting a large number of upvotes far beyond what is required, I didn't hit rep cap. I got to 198. Out of interest, what can cause this?

bruglesco

2:47 AM

@GregoryCurrie You hit rep cap and then got downvoted.

You got no more upvotes before the day ended. leaving you with 198. . .

Gregory Currie

3:12 AM

Damn. That's very poor.

So, I can get a billion upvotes, followed by a single downvoute and I won't hit cap

bruglesco

yeah. kinda annoying...

Richard U

1:18 PM

Yep, and a few folks have been targeted with deliberate downvotes before the end of the day.

bruglesco

1:45 PM

@RichardU ohh that's fowl

what kind of petty person times a downvote in an effort to increase the hurtfulness of the act.

doppelgreener

Nobody, it's going to be coincidental: some downvotes can come at the end of the day.

Trust in good faith, folks. I don't imagine anyone's actually waiting for the end of the day to find people near the rep cap and downvote them.

27

Q: What if I hit the daily rep cap and THEN get downvoted?

If I hit the daily rep cap (with a great overhead, say 40 upvotes for answers, which would translate to 400 rep) and THEN get one downvote, does it still count that I hit the daily rep cap that day?

I've put a bounty on this meta question so we can get a clear answer on what happens with that though.

bruglesco

2:22 PM

@doppelgreener I hope you are right.

doppelgreener

It is a fairly unlikely level of petty vindictiveness. When it comes to single votes, never ascribe to malevolence what can be ascribed to coincidence.

Individual downvotes are like white noise from the universe.

And sometimes they'll come at the end of the day.

Well, petty vindictiveness plus careful thought and planning and research and timing and patience and other things. "It's a coincidence" is a way more likely interpretation. People who are that level of vindictive jackass tend to out themselves other ways and get dealt with though.

If you're seeing a pattern of individual downvotes at the end of the day that would be worth reporting.

But, you know, some vote on your content has to be the last one of the day. And sometimes that last vote is going to be a downvote.

bruglesco

2:55 PM

That's a reasonable assessment. I'd be willing to wager it has happened before though. Some people are very petty

doppelgreener

3:08 PM

1

A: What if I hit the daily rep cap and THEN get downvoted?

To answer the question highlighted by @doppelgreener's bounty: yes, it counts towards those badges. Those badges only count upvotes, so even if you get 10 upvotes on an answer, one downvote and then another 10 upvotes, you'll qualify for the Mortarboard badge and one part of the Epic/Legendary ba...

Yeah, though it's best to believe in good faith until you have evidence for otherwise. Reading patterns and malevolence into voting is usually wrong, especially when we're assuming who was responsible for what votes. Those could've been multiple different people leaving those downvotes.

2

Moderators and CMs have better tools for investigating vote patterns though which is why it's good to flag suspicious voting patterns for moderator attention.

bruglesco

Well yes, as a standard user I am not going to get the whole picture. If it happens every now and then so be it. It is only if a pattern arises that it should be dealt with. I guess escalated to the CM level as they can look into voting patterns and isolated votes better.

@doppelgreener It's nice to finally have an answer to that.

doppelgreener

Same! I tried to look this up a while back as well and couldn't figure it out.

Hmmm. Rand al'Thor asserts differently.

Richard U

3:36 PM

@doppelgreener No, it's happened, and been mentioned here a few times. It seems to come in fits and spurts though. Once you get to a certain rep, you laugh at the pettiness of it. a .002% hit to ones rep it amusing

@bruglesco people are petty and will do petty things.

doppelgreener

3:49 PM

1 hour ago, by doppelgreener

It is a fairly unlikely level of petty vindictiveness. When it comes to single votes, never ascribe to malevolence what can be ascribed to coincidence.

If you're seeing troubling voting patterns please report them.

bruglesco

@RichardU I can't argue with that.

Richard U

5:15 PM

@doppelgreener petty vindictiveness is far from unlikely. I can site dozens of examples from the top of my head.

Rory Alsop

@RichardU yeah, not very much at all though. The stats that mods get indicate this is really not an issue to any statistical level, so it's really not worth worrying about. Also, it's imaginary internet points, so another reason to really not even take note of it.

You are far more likely to get undeserved upvote rep than downvote rep

Richard U

@RoryAlsop Oh, I'm not saying it's an issue, just that there are petty people out there.

doppelgreener

This is entirely unnecessary.

"Petty vindictiveness is unlikely" is not what I said, either.

Richard U

The petty vindictiveness I've seen on the job is legendary.

I remember when I worked for the road department, someone tried to run down a coworker because we had the road closed

nothing surprises me.

Rory Alsop

@RichardU I think we have chatted about this before - you must have had some rough jobs. Almost all of the companies I have worked with, from 3 person, to 350000 have been almost entirely full of nice people trying to do good things. Sure, there are exceptions, but they are exceptions, so it's utterly not worth anyone's time focusing on them.

Richard U

5:21 PM

@RoryAlsop yes, part of the genius of this site is that there's limited damage a vindictive person can inflict.

@RoryAlsop I've worked blue collar, and service, and those industries are ROUGH

Rory Alsop

@RichardU more of the genius is that we attract a very nice percentage of good people because the model makes it difficult for the petty to do any major damage so generally they give up and go away

@RichardU rough, but still good people. I have too.

bruglesco

I've seen plenty of pettiness and vindictiveness myself. I also have a tendency to think the worst of peoples motivations, and am often wrong. So while I don't disagree with your assessment @RichardU I also actively resist accepting it unverified

Rory Alsop

In the main, people are good

Richard U

@RoryAlsop yep, and it's hard to troll too.

bruglesco

@RoryAlsop Not all of em

Gregory Currie

5:23 PM

Just for the record, I wasn't accusing anyone of anything :)

Rory Alsop

@bruglesco that's a pretty good approach. I almost always think the best of people, but also verification is good

@bruglesco "in the main, people are good"

bruglesco

fair

Richard U

@RoryAlsop Gvien the overwhelming history of the human race, I disagree with your assessment.

bruglesco

I have a hard time accepting that but am also aware that it isn't necessarily accurate

Rory Alsop

@RichardU ah - you must look at the data very differently to me. Human history proves that the vast majority are nice people trying to do the best they can. Unfortunately the tiny fraction who are complete ****s can cause disproportionate mayhem in the real world.

2

Richard U

5:25 PM

If you ever want to see evil in it's purest form, watch a playground full of five year olds where they ostricise that one child who doesn't fit in

@RoryAlsop My grandparents left Germany in the late 1920s. Guess what happened to the family that didn't make it out? I have ZERO faith in humanity

Rory Alsop

@RichardU hahahaha - no, that's utterly not evil. That's as yet undeveloped brain functions and social skills. Do you have kids?

@RichardU Again, we are all lucky that the vast majority of humans are not Hitler and his ilk

Otherwise the world would be much nastier than it is now

bruglesco

@RichardU If you ever want to see humanity at its greatest. Watch a five year old comforting another child for any number of hurts. Social and physical

Richard U

@bruglesco You never see an angry mob of people building something. Destroying, yes. quite often

Rory Alsop

@RichardU ANger is not a building emotion - of course you wouldn't

@RichardU but happy crowds of people building things - absolutely

bruglesco

I've seen things both built and destroyed. Humanity is both good and evil. No one will win this because there are endless examples on either side

Rory Alsop

5:28 PM

@bruglesco yup

Richard U

@RoryAlsop Well, it is for me, but because of the autism, I am in a perpetual state of rage. I've learned to use it as fuel.

Rory Alsop

you are spot on with that

@RichardU I get that. But it can't make things easy in some situations, surely

I don't know what you use to relax or step away but I'm sure you have a mechanism for that

Richard U

@RoryAlsop I need to keep busy, or remove myself from all stimuli to relax

IT's hard because the entire world is painful to me.

at least the modern world

Rory Alsop

@RichardU I'm with you on the keeping myself busy bit, to be honest.

Richard U

@RoryAlsop True story, during the worst period of my life, I volunteered to help this place clean out brush Working next to me, was a kid that was doing community service doing the same thing. When he went up after his time was done, he started talking to a couple of my friends...

He thought I was there on community service, and told my friends that I must have done some viotlent stuff.

I was taking all of my frustrations out on the brush and garbage trees I was removing.

bruglesco

5:40 PM

I need to get better at not bickering in comments

Somehow it never works out with me unwaveringly convincing the other person that I am correct and they should agree with me now.

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