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This is my first post on meta, so I'm not sure if it's on-topic. Feel free to tell me if I have to delete it.

I'm feeling a bit upset, because my two top-voted posts (my top-voted question and top-voted answer) have just recieved a downvote each, with no explanation at all.

I believe it's some kind of I-just-wanna-annoy move, and not that the downovter really thinks the posts deserve it. Otherwise, why do it without revealing his/her identity or explaining the reason? Also, the fact that it was not one but two downvotes in less than a minute makes me suspicious.

The voting system is completely anonymous, right? Because, if it wasn't, maybe it would be possible to keep track of these cases and communicate with the users that to tell them they should explain the downvotes, or punish them in some sense if they were just trolling. Is this agains the community principles or something?

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    $\begingroup$ I would ignore them ;) $\endgroup$
    – jojek Mod
    Jan 29, 2018 at 17:17
  • $\begingroup$ i disagree with @jojek . i think the downvoters should be identified and shot. $\endgroup$
    – robert bristow-johnson
    Feb 6, 2018 at 19:43
  • $\begingroup$ but mainly those who downvote my answers and questions. $\endgroup$
    – robert bristow-johnson
    Feb 6, 2018 at 19:44
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    $\begingroup$ @robertbristow-johnson That comment made my day, I laughed out loud. Btw, two more downvotes today... It's been 6 in a week. What a bummer... $\endgroup$
    – Tendero
    Feb 6, 2018 at 21:22

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This is a well-known problem on the Stack Exchange network, and there are automatic mechanisms in place to try to deal with it. I'm not sure if the process will be triggered by two downvotes, but it may be.

Read about it here and here.

My advice? Just ignore it. Sure, it's annoying... but is rep on a website really worth more than being happy with the good things the website gives you?

I had one high-rep voter on the Personal Finance SE site take exception to an answer where I proved his answer was wrong. Because he made money out of his blog about personal finance, he took at me. His downvotes (way more than two) on that site, and others we had in common, were eventually rescinded. He eventually admitted on the Personal Finance site that he had had some mental stability issues and had gone off the rails a bit.

Another thing I do is write an @downvoter comment on my post. Sometimes, if the downvoter is genuine, then they answer and have good feedback --- which improves my post if I act on it.

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    $\begingroup$ Two more downvotes appeared... It's frustrating, but well, we'll just have to deal with this kind of stuff. $\endgroup$
    – Tendero
    Jan 29, 2018 at 17:26
  • $\begingroup$ Will the downvoter be notified if you leave a @downvoter comment? $\endgroup$
    – Olli Niemitalo
    Jan 31, 2018 at 14:56
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    $\begingroup$ @OlliNiemitalo : No. Just sometimes they see it and respond. Can yield useful discussions. $\endgroup$
    – Peter K. Mod
    Jan 31, 2018 at 15:08
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    $\begingroup$ The atSymboldownvoter functionality implied by @OlliNiemitalo seems like a good feature to address part of this problem across the SE network. So long as it does not trigger long circular arguments which indicate special personalities. I was not paying attention until this post but at certain times, I (can only) suspect the occurence of a downvote occuring after a brief debate or comment. $\endgroup$
    – A_A
    Feb 2, 2018 at 10:27
  • $\begingroup$ @A_A I've had all sorts: rage-downvotes after posting a contradictory answer, legitimate downvotes after a discussion that didn't convince the commenter, and completely anonymous, zero-feedback downvotes. GIven the prevalence of rage-downvotes, I think allowing anonymous commenting by verified users might be a better answer than [at]downvote doing something... $\endgroup$
    – Peter K. Mod
    Feb 2, 2018 at 13:42
  • $\begingroup$ @Tendero, 4 DVs in that short a period of time should trigger the automatic anti-abuse thing; they'll eventually get thrown out (assuming it's all from one person). There used to be a small rep deduction for downvoters, not sure if that's still true. If it is, and you suspect someone in particular, you can have a look at their rep history and see if they have a bunch of -1 or -2 rep adjustments corresponding to the times you were downvoted. I wouldn't worry about it much, though. $\endgroup$
    – Guest
    Feb 5, 2018 at 18:42

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