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A user for whom I answered a question (I just looked at their profile for curiosity) earned 135 rep on 1 March 2014 from serial upvoting, which was reversed the day after. OK.

According to this accepted answer, a reversal triggers a reputation recalculation.

My question is, why does the user still seem to have gained that 135 rep on the Reputation graph?

inaccurate graph

It should be zero. Are the graphs static and not included in the reputation recalculation? If not, I think they should be - if it is possible, of course.

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  • It's +135 on one day and -135 on the next. If it just "disappeared" it wouldn't be clear exactly what happened to it Mar 6, 2014 at 23:00
  • Yes, that is what I do not understand. If the upvotes are resetted, then the graph also should be ..? Mar 6, 2014 at 23:01
  • The events aren't reset (note you can still see then in the rep history). A new reversal event is generated; the two events together are a net zero (it gets more complicated when repcaps are involved but that's the gist) Mar 6, 2014 at 23:04
  • Yes, but the graph should be updated also, in my opinion. I was actually surprised it is not being updated. Mar 6, 2014 at 23:06
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    See Robert Harvey answer. That looks exactly how I would expect it to look Mar 6, 2014 at 23:06
  • It is the Indian approach, meant to make them think it worked. Mar 7, 2014 at 0:37
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    david, the graph is not showing cumulative reputation, it is showing the reputation by day. That user did gain +135 reputation on that day. When the serial upvoting was discovered, they did not lose that +135 reputation, they received a separate adjustment of -135 reputation to eliminate the gain from the serial upvoting. While +135 and -135 will result in a net change of zero in reputation, the graph is not showing net change, but rather than changes by day. If I get 1 upvote on an answer today (+10 rep), and 5 downvotes on it tomorrow (-10 rep), it will still show +10 yesterday -10 today
    – jmac
    Mar 7, 2014 at 6:34

2 Answers 2

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Days during which a user loses more reputation than they gain are shown as zero reputation on the graph on the user summary page. You can even see this on your own profile.

As you can see on the detailed reputation page, the serial upvoting occurred on march first, but the reversal didn't occur until march second at 3:00:

enter image description here

So the user gained reputation on Mar 1, which is clearly shown on the graph on the summary page. The user also lost all that reputation the next day, so the lost reputation would be shown on the next bar of the graph, if negative reputation were shown on the summary page graph. If you hover over that bar, you will see that even though there is no red bar pointing down, there is still a rep loss on that day:

enter image description here

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  • Yeah, I can see that - this is my question in short. Mar 6, 2014 at 23:02
  • @davidkonrad: Nothing follows. The reputation was earned yesterday, but revoked today.
    – user102937
    Mar 6, 2014 at 23:03
  • Yes, but the graph should show rep actually earned, also retrospectiveliy. Mar 6, 2014 at 23:04
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The graph on the user's Summary page is meant to show a pattern of activity... how active the user is on the site over a period of time. It is similar to this graph (volume of Google stock shares traded):

enter image description here

Note that we have no interest in the direction that shares were traded, but merely how many shares changed hands. The graph itself is by no means accurate, but merely shows a visual trend.

If you want an accurate graph, you have to go here:

enter image description here

enter image description here

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  • Yes, but this is not how normal (under 10000 rep I guess) users see the graph. They see the graph i posted in the question. Mar 6, 2014 at 23:09
  • I took this picture from a 1 rep account. If I'm seeing something that you're not seeing, it would be highly unusual. Did you look here? stackoverflow.com/users/3164770/user3164770?tab=reputation
    – user102937
    Mar 6, 2014 at 23:10
  • @davidKonrad this is also how the graph looks to me Mar 6, 2014 at 23:10
  • @davidkonrad There are two different graphs, one on the summary page and one on the reputation page. Mar 6, 2014 at 23:10
  • @Robert, have never seen such a reputation graph. Mar 6, 2014 at 23:11
  • Did you look here? stackoverflow.com/users/3164770/user3164770?tab=reputation
    – user102937
    Mar 6, 2014 at 23:11
  • @davidkonrad Look here: stackoverflow.com/users/3164770/… Mar 6, 2014 at 23:11
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    It is the summary page I have in focus. It is still wrong, regardless anything else. Mar 6, 2014 at 23:12
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    @RobertHarvey ?tab=reputation doesn't link directly to the graph; ?tab=reputation&sort=graph does. Mar 6, 2014 at 23:12
  • Alright, I finally see it. Is that really a problem, or does it just bother you that they didn't put in the negative red bars? Especially when there isn't even a scale on that graph, and they've given you a page that provides a detailed report?
    – user102937
    Mar 6, 2014 at 23:13
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    @David A bank robber stole 1 million from a bank on tuesday, on friday they were arrested and the money returned to the bank; plot the bank robber's net worth over time. The existing graph on the detailed page is correct Mar 6, 2014 at 23:14
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    @TheGuywithTheHat, that doesnt help on the summary page reputation graph, does it? Try read my question again, everybody. I talk about the reputation graph on the summary page, not everything else. Mar 6, 2014 at 23:14
  • @RichardTingle: He's looking at the user's summary page.
    – user102937
    Mar 6, 2014 at 23:15
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    @davidkonrad: I think the answer is that, if you're looking for that level of detail, you're looking in the wrong place. If I were tasked with this, my recommendation would be just to remove it, rather than try to fix it.
    – user102937
    Mar 6, 2014 at 23:17
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    @davidkonrad No, the graph is probably still updated upon rep recalculation. That is irrelevant, though; see my answer. Mar 6, 2014 at 23:36

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