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As we know, the tactical downvoting (I'm talking especially about SO, as I don't know about other sites) is more and more becoming a serious problem, as I see, the community can't stop this behavior without some sacrificing.

As a suggestion, I think it makes sense to prevent an answerer from downvoting any answer on the same question, this -sure- has a harm, but IMO, it's less harmful than the tactical downvoting issue, and to make the things a bit more easier, we can prevent an answerer from downvoting a question without posting a comment to that answer before.

And vice versa, if a user downvoted an answer, he shouldn't be able to post another one unless he posted a comment first, to prevent working-around that system, so a user can't downvote other answers before posting his own to avoid posting comments.

EDIT, more clarification: I don't say wrong answers shouldn't be downvoted, BUT if you want to downvote an answer and post your own, you'll have to post a comment, so we make sure you're not just downvoting right answers tactically.

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  • 33
    I've been out of touch with SO recently (my daughter got her first teeth...) Is tactical downvoting really such a big problem?
    – Treb
    Sep 20, 2009 at 20:13
  • See this discussion: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/22507/… Sep 20, 2009 at 21:26
  • See also: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4283/… Sep 20, 2009 at 21:55
  • 5
    "You have an interesting approach here (wasn't my downvote, BTW)." Requiring comments doesn't work. (And surprised no one mentioned it.)
    – Gnome
    Mar 19, 2010 at 15:51
  • This is particularly starting to get on my nerves.
    – Jeff Davis
    Feb 17, 2011 at 1:49
  • See also meta.stackexchange.com/q/75499/130885
    – endolith
    May 18, 2012 at 0:37
  • 1
    Another possible solution would be to just invalidate the downvote when an answer is posted. If a user decides to downvote other answers and then posts his own answer, those downvotes could reset. The user would've to downvote again after posting an answer and add then be forced to add a comment. Still, this won't stop any user from simply downvoting with another account.
    – Katai
    Jul 22, 2015 at 12:19

8 Answers 8

32

Tactical downvoting is something Jeff and the team has been aware of for a while, there has even been a blog post about it.

One of the recent changes Jeff made to avoid this is the timed voting, which means you can't reverse a vote after a certain period of time. There is also scripts in place to reverse serial downvotes which occur from time to time.

The best way to stop this is to flag instances of possible tactical downvoting to be investigated by the team, and if a user is guilty the relevant action will be taken. I have to admit on SU I have very rarely seen this occur, and I am not so sure if it is such a big problem on SO. I am not saying it does not exist, but I highly doubt it occurs on every question. There is possibly a small percentage of the total user base that does do this to get an advantage.

Apart from this, there is really very little that can be done to stop this, and anything more to stop it will eventually make the system to cumbersome to use. So forcing someone to leave a comment, which has been declined before, is not a solution, since this removes the anonymous nature of the voting process altogether. I don't always leave a comment for a downvote. If the answer is wrong, I don't need to make the person answering feel worse by pointing it out in a comment.

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    @Diago: Why the answer is wrong would be helpful in a comment (if not given as an answer itself).
    – Alex Angas
    Sep 21, 2009 at 13:47
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    When my answer is wrong and thus deserves a down vote, I would very much appreciate a comment. This would also allow a discussion, should the answer be correct (but unpopular ..)
    – lexu
    Oct 24, 2009 at 7:54
  • 12
    Terrible fix; firstly people can still downvote permanently for gain, secondly it prevents legitimate vote changes for a dubious benefit.
    – RomanSt
    Nov 6, 2009 at 0:02
  • 6
    Locking in votes doesn't prevent tactical downvoting. People will just downvote others and leave it that way instead of undoing it later. Lose 5 rep and gain 30, where's the disincentive? This rule causes more harm than good.
    – endolith
    Aug 1, 2011 at 2:04
  • 1
    How do I flag instances of tactical downvoting? I ask because the downvoter in question will have answered the question with a possibly correct answer, and also probably left comments on some of the downvoted answers. What do I flag: the answer? the comments?
    – Dani
    Aug 15, 2012 at 15:26
  • This can easily be stopped by disabling voted by people who answer the same question. The remaining community will vote on good and bad answers. End of problem that way!
    – Menelaos
    Dec 30, 2013 at 19:53
  • @lexu You are right expecting a comment in your case, however comments are named, but downvotes must remain anonymous. This makes hard or even impossible what you (and me) feel right. Mar 12, 2016 at 17:24
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    Timed voting blocking is problematic. I cannot, for example remove a downvote when as sober second thought I so decide. Downvoting is also problematic in the sense that it takes a lot more expertise to downvote properly than this company allows for when granting that privilege. That opinion is backed by research that I do not bother to quote here as those who disagree with me will remain unconvinced anyway. Let me put it this way, negative reinforcement, when applied erroneously is damaging. Negative reinforcement is NEGATIVE, and there is no amount of perfume that removes the stench.
    – Carl
    Apr 21, 2020 at 21:43
52

If I see an answer to a question that is just plain wrong, I should be able to both downvote it and post my own answer. This is such a fundamental part of SO that it's too heavy-handed to prevent it just to avoid a relatively minor problem.

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    Agree, you should downvote it AND say why you did it, if you want to post another answer. Sep 20, 2009 at 20:27
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    The problem with comment requirements is that you can not force a sensible or topical comment. If I were poorly behaved, I could tactically downvote, make and irrelevant comment and move on. None the worse for it, and the victim none the better off. Sep 20, 2009 at 20:38
  • dmckee, you'll be immediately noticed if you post a nonsense comment to justify your tactical downvote. Sep 20, 2009 at 20:42
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    Then you'd have to add code to detect when someone downvoted an answer, commented on it, added his own answer, and then deleted the comment. Or prevent that particular comment from being deleted. There are probably other cases to consider as well. Either way, I think it's too much extra code and logic. Sep 20, 2009 at 21:40
  • (Clarification: by "you'd have to add code" I mean Jeff and the team would have to add code) Sep 20, 2009 at 21:42
  • if you have to add code to be able to downvote, why not complete the code to that routine 100%? this would allow you to avoid having to write other code to prevent serial downvoting and other such problems. Maybe I'm just not understanding the logic here, or is it to create more work to do? Jul 30, 2010 at 10:11
  • A single vote from a single potential expert is a drop in the ocean. Fixing the conflict of interest is far more important. Also, it's not a minor problem, because half of the SO's annoying anti-features are in place solely because of this problem.
    – RomanSt
    Aug 10, 2010 at 9:28
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    The only problem with this if you down vote another answer and leave a comment, and they downvote your answer simply out of spite. Dec 17, 2013 at 11:00
  • 1
    If you decide to answer you should not have a vote. Trust in the rest of community to vote correctly.
    – Menelaos
    Dec 30, 2013 at 19:50
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    @maythesource.com Please forgive my mistrust of the rest of the community to vote "correctly". Everyone should be entitled to vote (regardless of answer status), including me, even if my vote is objectively "wrong". Individuals and communities have been know to make mistakes. E.g. 1) Flat earth, dark ages. 2) stackoverflow.com/q/383947/224704 The accepted and highest (by more than 7) voted answer is wrong. Yes it's a brilliant answer. but for a different question!. Jan 8, 2017 at 5:35
  • @Craig Young You're confusing 2 different things. Keep separate the two issues of: Community correct voting vs individual voting. There is no gaurantee the community will vote correctly. However, voting on competitor's answers (on a question you have answered) entails a conflict of interest. If stackoverflow could know friends, they could also limit those. *So only those, with no chance of a conflict of interest should vote* as with paper reviews, contract tenders, etc. Voting (when in conflict of interest) causes more problems than offsetting errors in the community.
    – Menelaos
    Jan 9, 2017 at 11:22
  • @maythesource.com No, "conflict of interest" would be voting on your own answer. And this is not allowed. Jan 9, 2017 at 11:30
  • @Craig Young Voting on other answers is a conflict of interest. Tactical downvoting aims to give a +1 advantage at the beginning that allows re-editing the answer without pushing it down below 1st place. Many users will then +1 on the first answer in the list (if it is good enough). This gives time for the user to improve the answer (without being pushed down). See: businessdictionary.com/definition/conflict-of-interest.html , A situation that has the potential to undermine the impartiality of a person because[..]of a clash between the person's self-interest and[...]public interest.
    – Menelaos
    Jan 9, 2017 at 11:42
  • @maythesource I understand the meaning of "conflict of interest" tyvm. I'm beginning to suspect you may have some form of conflict of interest which is clouding your judgement to see the benefit of voting down objectively bad/wrong answers and also providing an objectively good/correct answer. Surely such an action on a question with no correct answers would be in the public interest. ;) I don't think we'll be able to reach agreement because you see answers "in competition" with each other. I see each answer (or question) in isolation. It's either good/bad or might be inconsequential. Jan 9, 2017 at 11:56
  • @Craig Young I'm dissappointed you are inferring things about me. I'm simply explaining to you what you seem to not understand. Let me re-iterate: A) ** There cannot be tactical downvoting if some people don't see answers as being in competition.** B) You needed an explanation, of why it is a possible conflict of interest to be able to downvote on other answers (leading possible abuse and tactical downvoting). The ideal situation would be if everyone voted responsively & answered qualitatively w/out seeing answers "asInCompetition". However, not all of stackoverflow is like you.
    – Menelaos
    Jan 9, 2017 at 12:11
37

I just ran some stats looking at people who downvote on competing answers:

  1. I looked at the ratio between downvoting the competition and total answers, so this gave me the top 500 who tend to downvote the competition

  2. Of this list only about 20 had a ratio higher than half, meaning only 20 people total on stackoverflow will downvote the competition on more than 50% of the questions they answer.

  3. Looking through the list of people who do this some patterns emerge:

    1. These people tend to answer crowded questions.
    2. These people in general seemed like experts in their fields
    3. These people seem to be participating in difficult tags (such as c++ or perl) which tend to attract a lot of wrong answers.

Overall looking at these people it appears the downvotes are helping float up good info. Which is why we allow downvoting in the first place.

As it stands I can not see any pattern of abuse in Stack Overflow and do not believe any changes need to be made to address competitive downvotes.

There are a large number of reasons I think this is not a problem

  1. Its self-correcting, meaning if somebody is misbehaving the community will correct it anyway.

  2. It is fully audited - so problem users are automatically picked up and we can ban accounts if needed (or reverse votes)

  3. Vote lock in really helps out as people can not hide their tracks.

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    Vote lock-in prevents people from changing their votes for legitimate reasons, though. Helps with one problem while creating a new problem. If tactical voting isn't a serious problem, then why are votes locked in at all?
    – endolith
    Aug 1, 2011 at 1:58
  • Thanks for this answer. I've just read a few questions and many answers on this topic while increasingly wondering if there really was a problem or just an unjustified fear. Now we know. Dec 12, 2012 at 8:47
  • Is there some public data or common knowledge regarding what are "difficult tags" ? Dec 12, 2012 at 8:49
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It's pretty obvious that there's a "bandwagon effect", wherein people vote up answers that already have upvotes and ignore answers that already have downvotes, so it makes sense that dishonest people would manipulate this effect by using "tactical downvoting" to push themselves to the top of the list.

But if "tactical downvoting" is really a serious problem (and it doesn't sound like it is), locking-in votes is not a solution. In fact, it's a problem of its own.

There are many topics where common understanding is subtly wrong. (You know, the sorts of questions that people ask on sites like this.) The first answers will often be flawed by this common misunderstanding, and the first upvotes that pour in will also be wrong. Only after some discussion in the comments or after a more enlightened answer is posted do voters realize just how wrong that other answer is. But their votes are locked-in and can't be changed. The subtly-wrong answer now has lots of upvotes it doesn't deserve, continuing the cycle of misunderstanding as it misleads thousands of subsequent viewers.

Locking votes doesn't do anything to prevent people from downvoting competing answers anyway. They can still do that just fine. It does prevent them from undoing the damage after they "win", however, which just makes it even more harmful to the victims.

It does make permanent the small rep penalty you get for downvoting others, but that's not enough to stop anyone. Pushing yourself to the top of the bandwagon will get you a lot more rep than you lose. If that's really the rationale, it would be better to allow people to undo their downvotes, but don't give them their rep back when they do. Same effect on the voter, without the harmful side effects.

A real solution would be to remove the bandwagon effect altogether. Two proposals:

  1. For a period of time after a question is asked, display the answers in random order and hide the number of votes they've received. Downvoting competing answers will accomplish nothing, since no one can see the current score and be influenced by it. Votes will be more accurate and objective, too, since people will actually have to read through answers and judge them on their merits, instead of just skimming through the ones that were posted first and ignoring the ones at the bottom.
  2. On each page view, choose at random one of the answers that haven't received many votes, and highlight it by placing it near the top of the list (maybe directly under the top-voted answer with a box around it to set it apart?) This way, in the long run, all answers will get equal exposure and hopefully more votes, to more accurately order the answers by helpfulness and counteract the "first post effect".
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  • Do you have data which suggests locking in votes has not served its intended purpose? Because I bet SE has data that shows it has. May 10, 2012 at 2:23
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    @AndrewBarber: I've never seen any defenders of vote-locking provide any evidence that it actually helps anything, no. If there was some, this would be a good place to put it: meta.stackexchange.com/q/18370/130885 Do you have data which suggests it's not causing more problems than it solves?
    – endolith
    May 10, 2012 at 2:43
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Personally, I don't believe tactical downvoting has much effect at all. It feels immediate, spiteful and effective, so people get upset. But IMHO it's an ineffectual strategy. This is because most users vote to move an answer towards its perceived value, not because they agree/disagree with what is said. If an answer is 'worth 4 points' to most users, it will converge on that value over time.

Long term, answers that are downvoted without basis will be upvoted, netting reputation points for free. Aggressive downvoting actually helps that user in the long run!

I've discussed this line of reasoning in more detail before.

Some say tactical downvoting works because answers at the top of the stack are much more likely to be upvoted. I'd like to see some evidence of this. I've never noticed it myself. Most questions only have a small number of answers, and they're usually short. Are people really as lazy as this assumes?

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    I don't totally agree that users vote to move and answer towards its perceived value. I think that they do move an answer towards either positive or negative (or zero) if they think it should be there. However, I don't think anybody is going to see a question with +30 and think "Hey, that only deserves +10" and vote it down. Nor will someone see an answer at -5 and think, "Hey, that's a -2 at the most" and vote it up. Votes settling on one value is not a function of individual perception of worth at that value, but of aggregate perception. Individuals just think up or down, good or bad. Sep 21, 2009 at 12:42
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    The problems is that an answer with -1 looks bad, so other people are likely to assume it is a bad answer and not even consider it.
    – Jeff Davis
    Feb 17, 2011 at 1:52
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    @JefDavis: Maybe the votes shouldn't be displayed at all during the initial answering period, so they are voted up or down based purely on their merits and not based on what others have voted? That would remove the incentive for tactical downvoting, reduce the bandwagon effect, and encourage more people to answer.
    – endolith
    Aug 1, 2011 at 2:11
5

Every time you become more concerned about votes than providing good answers, God closes a question.

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    CW Is intended as sarcasm.
    – user50049
    Jul 8, 2010 at 11:05
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Can't say I've noticed the problem, but perhaps it's not as prevalent in the threads I use. However, someone can only downvote your answer once - does a 2 becoming a 1 really make that much difference? If someone is in the habit of downvoting tactically, it would likely be apparent from their profile. And wrong answers should be downvotable irrespective of any other answers.

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    Yes, it makes difference, so users do it. I don't say wrong answers shouldn't be downvoted, BUT if you want to downvote an answer and post your own, you'll have to post a comment, so we make sure you're not just downvoting right answers tactically. Sep 20, 2009 at 20:31
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    2 becoming a 1 is not very significant. 1 becoming a 0 means a lot. 0 becoming -1 will will cause a lot of users to look at it as a bad answer without even reading it.
    – awe
    Sep 21, 2009 at 12:05
  • With the new vote changes it will be apparent. The 'old style' vote reversal pretty much made it easy to vote answers down temporarily until you took the lead naturally, and then remove the downvotes.
    – TM.
    Sep 21, 2009 at 13:43
  • Tactical downvoting depends on the tag. My observation: there is almost none on the Perl or C tags, but lots on the JavaScript tag.
    – delete
    Jul 5, 2010 at 5:20
1

It would be better if people who downvote would also be required to leave a comment. Sometimes, answers get downvoted because of misconceptions, which cannot be cleared if people just downvote without comment.

And then you could flag offensive downvotes much easier too...

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    This is not a bad idea..
    – Menelaos
    Dec 30, 2013 at 20:38
  • +1. I was just about to write this as an answer. May 18, 2014 at 18:22
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    The point about misconceptions is completely valid... but outweighed by the disadvantages of required comments. This feature suggestion has been done to death dozens of time, perhaps even hundreds.
    – Ben Voigt
    Jan 28, 2015 at 16:52

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