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I appear to have lost around 200 reputation sometime today. It looked like someone had systematically up-voted a bunch of my questions and answers from what I saw before it went; it could be a big recalc, but I don'think I'd be affected much by losing rept from deleted content.

I'm assuming this is what's happened, but only because I remember being really pleased that I'd finally become an established user and now I'm not again. But no message was shown me, nor does anything show up in my rept list. It's just gone.

Now I totally understand that the value of my investments may go down as well as up, it's just quite jarring to discover it by chance and without any record of it. So I'd like to echo the made by animuson in reply to #123319: Upcoming Reputation History Changes on Thursday:

Currently, when things get deleted, they just disappear from your history. That's not very helpful, especially concerning reputation. When my reputation randomly drops by 40, it would be nice to be able to see that in my history. Would it be possible to make this change show up in the history?

Edit: I can see that highlighting which irregular votes have been spotted and removed (and, thus, tacitly pointing out any irregular votes that had not been spotted) causes some concern. But it still means users suffer some confusion with having seen they'd gained a load of reputation and then just having it vanish.

Removing the lines from the rept history, then adding a single line reading something like

0  Reputation readjustment after irregular votes removed

would have clarified that, even if which votes had been removed were not specified. Just some indication in the UX is all I'm looking for really.

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    The real issue is that your reputation number displayed at the top of the page is a denormalized number that can have "artificial" reputation in it (reputation from deleted posts that has not been removed). The reputation page will always show your true reputation, and immediately after a rep recalc will be exactly the same as your displayed reputation.
    – user102937
    Feb 27, 2012 at 1:28
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    I'll echo the comment made by Nick Craver: That's part of this change, when a post is deleted you'll see that in your reputation history tab. - There's no need for a feature request, it's already being implemented. As for the serial upvotes, you'll just have to ignore them. Usually it's pretty easy to tell when it happens. It happened to me just yesterday and I figured out that I was going to lose 80 reputation coming up. Those votes actually get reversed, like they never happened.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Feb 27, 2012 at 5:28

1 Answer 1

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Please no.

As Robert Harvey explains in his comment:

The real issue is that your reputation number displayed at the top of the page is a denormalized number that can have "artificial" reputation in it (reputation from deleted posts that has not been removed). The reputation page will always show your true reputation, and immediately after a rep recalc will be exactly the same as your displayed reputation.

the differences are the result of denormalization.

Documenting the changes that come from re-normalizing the data would just complicate matters for everyone - the developers, and the users. It's not random - it's just that some changes in the system (like question deletions) take some time until they become visible. You're not losing nor gaining any points through this.

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  • Sorry, I think I've been unclear. It's the serial-upvotes rept disappearing that I'm talking about. That was genuine rept that I had and was removed, rather than just a normalisation error. Feb 27, 2012 at 7:31
  • If somebody voted some of your posts, and those votes were removed, it means they were considered fraud votes, or voting irregularities. I don't think I would like a notification every time it happens.
    – apaderno
    Feb 27, 2012 at 13:18
  • @Owen ah, I see what you mean. I guess a case could be made here, but IMO 1.) it's not happening often enough to warrant a new feature 2.) seeing what got removed as irregular votes would lead to endless discussions, and make it easier for fraudsters to fine-tune their behaviour. I still think it shouldn't be implemented.
    – Pekka
    Feb 27, 2012 at 14:10
  • I can see your point. But it still means I suffered some confusion with having seen I'd gained a load of reputation and then just having it vanish. Removing the serial-upvotes lines, then adding a single line reading 0 Reputation readjustment after irregular votes removed would have clarified that, even if which votes had been removed were not specified. Just some indication in the UX is all I'm looking for really. Feb 27, 2012 at 15:44
  • I'd edited my original post to clarify what I'm asking for, having taken in the comments on this thread. Feb 27, 2012 at 15:47
  • @Owen fair enough, your request does make sense for those cases....
    – Pekka
    Feb 27, 2012 at 16:10
  • @Pekka'sReputationBordello Thanks. And sorry for forgetting to tag you earlier ;o) Feb 27, 2012 at 16:47

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