How old? If it’s less than a week, it might just be somebody catching up on old comments. (If it’s more than a week, that would be suspicious, of course.)
I had that happen to me a while back to the tune of 80 karma lost in under half an hour. It’s not an appropriate use of the voting system and I hope whoever is/was doing it to you stops.
I may disagree with what you say, but I’ll recite the famous Voltaire quote until I’m blue in the face in your defense.
I have been driven-by several times. It sucks. Although I disagree with your stated habit of not voting and participating in the same thread, I have voted on your comments only as they’ve come up and only when I think there is a genuine issue of quality, not indiscriminately and on old comments. (I mention this because I’m probably an obvious suspect in some people’s minds.)
Maybe down-voting old comments shouldn’t affect karma. After all, the more comments you make, the more potential karma you can lose from one person going through your history. I could probably lose all of my karma just by offending the wrong person. Besides, someone changing the points of an old comment no one may ever read again from 8 to 7 is hardly improving the quality of discourse.
Besides, someone changing the points of an old comment no one may ever read again from 8 to 7 is hardly improving the quality of discourse.
I disagree. The idea is that people will read the old comments again, and the score of comments gives an impression to a random passerby what the community is about.
Sure, so long as it doesn’t give the impression that that is what the community was about at that time. This community is a moving target, and ideas and opinions change. If we decide to update old comments with new votes, do we risk losing something of archival interest? If we vote up a comment that says ‘A is B’, and a year later vote up a comment that says ‘A is not B’, going back and voting down the ‘A is B’ comment gives the false impression that this community is remarkably consistent. I think I’m blowing this out of proportion, though.
I would presume that the number of people willing to systematically downvote all of a particular person’s comments is rather low. Is this a rather common problem? Or does it just show up once a few months?
I’ve had drops of 5 or 6 karma at a time as someone goes through and downvotes all my comments in a particular thread, but I think that’s the price we have to pay; by and large, the karma system here seems to work very well, and provides a very useful method of gauging posts.
Not to be a punk, but were all of those posts deserving of being downvoted? I have no qualms with downvoting posts in batches as long as those posts would have been downvoted anyway. Periodically I read older articles or read the recent posts of certain people. If I find a thread of comments I think should be up or downvoted I do so. This may hit one person with 5 or 6 votes all at once.
I don’t think that getting 30 downvotes after a particularly volatile thread is necessarily misuse of the karma system. I can see how it would happen through legitimate use. As long as each vote was made within the full context of the comment, a drop of 30 is very plausible.
It is, however, much more convenient to say that someone is picking on you than to consider that no one bothered to read your comments until now.
This being said, SilasBarta’s notes about his recent hits do not appear to follow a legitimate pattern. I am not trying to point at anyone here, least of all SilasBarta; I am just noting that cries of, “Unfair!” don’t always point to someone abusing the system.
[B]y and large, the karma system here seems to work very well, and provides a very useful method of gauging posts.
I completely agree. I find the karma system very helpful.
As another data point here, someone seems to be doing the same thing to me, only in reverse—I just gained 20 or so karma in a short time period, and none of it apparently on recent comments. I don’t see how this could be someone trying to abuse the system, unless I have some insane stalker fan or something.
ETA: or a Tyler Durden sockpuppet.
ETA2: SoullessAutomaton’s comment seems the most plausible.
Maybe someone who knows your voting habits and and wants to annoy you by searching through your history for your worst comments, in order to put upvotes on mediocre comments that you’ll never be able to downvote?
Never underestimate the number of people on the internet with too much free time and too little sense. I don’t think this is a problem right now, though. Of course, if it does become a problem, it’s the kind that would be hard to identify.
From a database point, it may actually be very easy to find the culprits. I do not know if there is a timestamp on voting, but a sudden influx of downvotes from a particular person should be relatively obvious.
Not that I think any sort of data police needs to exist right now. Even if someone did start messing with the karma system I would rather the developers keep the features coming than worry about a troll.
Eliezer has mentioned trying to get such a monitoring feature built if it becomes apparent that it is becoming a frequent problem. It’s not to that point yet, apparently.
How old? If it’s less than a week, it might just be somebody catching up on old comments. (If it’s more than a week, that would be suspicious, of course.)
Yes, more than a week. I remember a thread where I had 8 and 4 and it went to 7 and 3.
Btw, 231 now. That’s over a 30 drop, probably due mostly to one person. Quite some “catching up”!
I had that happen to me a while back to the tune of 80 karma lost in under half an hour. It’s not an appropriate use of the voting system and I hope whoever is/was doing it to you stops.
I may disagree with what you say, but I’ll recite the famous Voltaire quote until I’m blue in the face in your defense.
Please. Voltaire misquote!
Only somewhat, I thought. The sentiment is identical but the misquote is catchier.
ETA: Wikiquote seems to think even that quote is apocryphal, so nevermind, I guess.
I hear tell it’s from Evelyn Beatrice Hall, who was explicitly trying to say something Voltaire would agree with.
Pfft—I’m just being silly. Besides, I only know about that one because of webcomics.
I have been driven-by several times. It sucks. Although I disagree with your stated habit of not voting and participating in the same thread, I have voted on your comments only as they’ve come up and only when I think there is a genuine issue of quality, not indiscriminately and on old comments. (I mention this because I’m probably an obvious suspect in some people’s minds.)
Maybe down-voting old comments shouldn’t affect karma. After all, the more comments you make, the more potential karma you can lose from one person going through your history. I could probably lose all of my karma just by offending the wrong person. Besides, someone changing the points of an old comment no one may ever read again from 8 to 7 is hardly improving the quality of discourse.
I disagree. The idea is that people will read the old comments again, and the score of comments gives an impression to a random passerby what the community is about.
Of note, I certainly read old comments and vote on them all the time and consider all posts open discussion.
Sure, so long as it doesn’t give the impression that that is what the community was about at that time. This community is a moving target, and ideas and opinions change. If we decide to update old comments with new votes, do we risk losing something of archival interest? If we vote up a comment that says ‘A is B’, and a year later vote up a comment that says ‘A is not B’, going back and voting down the ‘A is B’ comment gives the false impression that this community is remarkably consistent. I think I’m blowing this out of proportion, though.
I would presume that the number of people willing to systematically downvote all of a particular person’s comments is rather low. Is this a rather common problem? Or does it just show up once a few months?
Well, it’s happened before at least a few times.
I’ve had drops of 5 or 6 karma at a time as someone goes through and downvotes all my comments in a particular thread, but I think that’s the price we have to pay; by and large, the karma system here seems to work very well, and provides a very useful method of gauging posts.
Not to be a punk, but were all of those posts deserving of being downvoted? I have no qualms with downvoting posts in batches as long as those posts would have been downvoted anyway. Periodically I read older articles or read the recent posts of certain people. If I find a thread of comments I think should be up or downvoted I do so. This may hit one person with 5 or 6 votes all at once.
I don’t think that getting 30 downvotes after a particularly volatile thread is necessarily misuse of the karma system. I can see how it would happen through legitimate use. As long as each vote was made within the full context of the comment, a drop of 30 is very plausible.
It is, however, much more convenient to say that someone is picking on you than to consider that no one bothered to read your comments until now.
This being said, SilasBarta’s notes about his recent hits do not appear to follow a legitimate pattern. I am not trying to point at anyone here, least of all SilasBarta; I am just noting that cries of, “Unfair!” don’t always point to someone abusing the system.
I completely agree. I find the karma system very helpful.
As another data point here, someone seems to be doing the same thing to me, only in reverse—I just gained 20 or so karma in a short time period, and none of it apparently on recent comments. I don’t see how this could be someone trying to abuse the system, unless I have some insane stalker fan or something.
ETA: or a Tyler Durden sockpuppet.
ETA2: SoullessAutomaton’s comment seems the most plausible.
Maybe someone who knows your voting habits and and wants to annoy you by searching through your history for your worst comments, in order to put upvotes on mediocre comments that you’ll never be able to downvote?
(Tongue in cheek, obviously)
I’d say the initial comment probably was worthy of the downvote, but the rest weren’t.
Fair enough.
Never underestimate the number of people on the internet with too much free time and too little sense. I don’t think this is a problem right now, though. Of course, if it does become a problem, it’s the kind that would be hard to identify.
From a database point, it may actually be very easy to find the culprits. I do not know if there is a timestamp on voting, but a sudden influx of downvotes from a particular person should be relatively obvious.
Not that I think any sort of data police needs to exist right now. Even if someone did start messing with the karma system I would rather the developers keep the features coming than worry about a troll.
Eliezer has mentioned trying to get such a monitoring feature built if it becomes apparent that it is becoming a frequent problem. It’s not to that point yet, apparently.