What do I do when I think someone downvotes because of jealousy?

Question

I think that someone downvoted me after becoming jealous because I pointed out that if possible you should not wait in a loop but instead use the system's sleep( int ) function. I downvoted him and after he asked I said I did so — next second I had downvotes.

Wouldn't it be good to have a required, but anonymous (by default) or non-anonymous (by choice) explanation to why? They could be different from comments and maybe you would have to click an icon next to the vote status thing.

I would say that the system of this site is probably the best I've seen — wish Wikipedia had it, but maybe it could become relative and not fixed. I mean that if the community thinks that someone's downvotes are less fair, they should affect less. Or maybe see behavioral patterns — just elaborating a little here. I know that over on ohloh you can give kudos — but the more you give the less your influence is.

Answer 1

Nothing. And furthermore,

1. Don't speculate as to who down-voted your post. Votes are anonymous - if I say I down-voted you, you have no way to prove that, and if I say I didn't, you've no way to prove that either.

2. Don't ask for an explanation if you don't really want one. The person who tries to explain what's wrong with your answer isn't necessarily the person who down-voted it; if you're just trying to get someone to reveal themselves as the down-voter, you're wasting your time and generating noise.

3. Don't reveal your own votes in comments. Taking time to explain why you feel an answer is good or bad is worthwhile, as it benefits future readers; talking about voting doesn't benefit anyone, and can lead to hurt feelings / thoughts of revenge / questions like this.

When answerers strive to improve their own answers and honestly critique other answers, everyone wins. When it devolves into a game of "who can get the most votes with the least effort", everyone loses. So the only way to win is to refuse to play...

Answer 2

The jealousy downvote cost him half as much rep as it cost you -- which isn't much to begin with. I wouldn't worry about it too much, especially since your next upvote will still be worth 10 rep.

Answer 3

adding an anonymous comment wouldn't help much, you just would get comments like "......".

If your answer/question is correct/good it will likely be upvoted (up to the level it deserves (if not more)) resulting in an additional +8 for each downvote:

Example for an answer with a net score of +2:

     what             | upvotes | downvotes | NET | reputation
    ------------------+---------+-----------+-----+------------
    without downvotes |    2    |     0     |  2  |  +20
    with one downvote |    3    |     1     |  2  |  +28
    ...

assuming the system works... I've seen this happening often on Stackoverflow...

related: How do you react when someone votes down your question?

Answer 4

For those who are interested, here is the answer in question.

FWIW I think pax' answer is better (ie: more correct). For one thing sleep() is not in the C standard, also depending on what you are doing you shouldn't use sleep(). Also he mentions he didn't downvote your answer; I would take his word for it.

In the end, I wouldn't worry too much about it, the community will sort this out. If people think your answer deserves more upvotes, you'll get upvotes. Heck, unless an answer is really bad, chances are you'll get what's called a "sympathy upvote" and net +8 rep.

Answer 5

I would just keep voting in a moral, mature fashion. If you begin acting childish because someone else is acting childish then you're no better than them. You aren't "showing them" you're just doing what you hated them doing so you've just repeated the behavior you claim to dislike.

In addition if the person continues to leave bad/useless answers the community will take care of it. Or is should. I know of people that pepper SO with useless answers, not bothering to actually read the questions even, and either vote them up with sock puppets or are in cahoots with other people just trying to up their scores.

Answer 6

If you suspect abusive votes have been cast, notify the moderators (on the question(s) and/or answer(s) that the abuse occurred on).

If it's only 1 or 2 downvotes, don't worry about it (the moderators have a lot to do already) but if he's casting several downvotes against you, then that needs to be brought up with the moderators.

Generally the bad user is not worth spending time on, either worrying about them, or caring about reasons for their actions. Downvoting happens, sometimes it's for the wrong reason, sometimes it occurs on even perfectly correct answers and great questions. You may as well treat it as random internet static. As long as the signal (correct voting patterns) is stronger than the noise (incorrect voting patterns) then everything still works out well.

In my experience, SO has a terrific signal to noise ratio.

Answer 7

I had a guy do this to me at one point. You have to just take it in stride, it happens and there's not much you can do about it. If they decide to be a jerk and go on a downvoting spree through your history, the abuse filter will catch it and negate their votes. If they just do it once--well, it's just 2 points. Best thing you can do is not let them waste your time.

I usually try gently to educate them about what downvotes are supposed to mean, then hope they're big enough to do the right thing. If not, well, childish people don't get much out of this site anyway.