24

I understand that there's been a reputation clean-up over the past few days, and the reasons for it.

However, a valued member of the TeX.SX community, @egreg, on his reputation page, has an entry saying

-4360 ... Voting fraud reversed

I'm not challenging the arithmetic, but the description is offensive. Would someone please fix it!

Improve this question
2

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
21

The message means that user was the target of voting fraud, not that they committed it.

I'm wide open to a clearer message here. Community (that's you!), please give me better copy to put there and we'll make it so.

Update: In the next build these items will read "Serial [up/down]voting reversed", this build will roll out in just a few minutes.

Improve this answer
18
  • 2
    If I received 4360 rep that I shouldn't have, I wouldn't really feel like a 'target' :)
    – AakashM
    Commented Mar 2, 2012 at 11:02
  • 6
    would "serial upvoting reversed" avoid implying a value judgement?
    – Flexo - Save the data dump
    Commented Mar 2, 2012 at 11:03
  • Nick, thank you. Where can I find out what "Voting fraud" actually means?
    – Brent.Longborough
    Commented Mar 2, 2012 at 11:05
  • 2
    @awoodland The problem with both of this is that the subject is missing, so somebody might assume the subject is the user whom the history belongs to
    – Yi Jiang
    Commented Mar 2, 2012 at 11:06
  • @awoodland's suggestion is perfect IMO.
    – Pekka
    Commented Mar 2, 2012 at 11:06
  • 1
    @Brent.Longborough: Wait...you came in here complaining that something is offensive and you don't even know what it actually means?
    – Time Traveling Bobby
    Commented Mar 2, 2012 at 11:08
  • 8
    @Bobby: Think about it for two minutes. I know what "Voting Fraud" means in English. That doesn't mean I have to know what it means in asp.net or any other StackExchangeSpeak. And in English, I find it offensive.
    – Brent.Longborough
    Commented Mar 2, 2012 at 11:10
  • @Bobby: He was offended by what he thought it meant (which is very unclear). Aside: How the hell can that much rep be involved in "vote fraud" in one day?
    – user159834
    Commented Mar 2, 2012 at 11:11
  • @YiJiang'sProble_, would Reversed sustained serial voting alleviate the ambiguity?
    – Frédéric Hamidi
    Commented Mar 2, 2012 at 11:14
  • 10
    @Bobby: How can you not understand that someone could be offended by being randomly accused of involvement in "vote fraud"?
    – user159834
    Commented Mar 2, 2012 at 11:18
  • 5
    @awoodland has a good suggestion for an alternative description. I'd refine it to "Reversed serial upvotes by other users". No intimation that the user that lost the rep had anything to do with creating the serial upvoting.
    – Verbeia
    Commented Mar 2, 2012 at 11:27
  • 3
    @Bobby: I'm sorry, I didn't want to get into a meta-argument; let me try to explain. First, I didn't know what constituted "vote fraud"; second I wasn't offended by it per se - after all, I've been to Florida --, but I was offended that it appeared to be attached to the name of a good friend who I know wouldn't do that.
    – Brent.Longborough
    Commented Mar 2, 2012 at 14:19
  • 1
    The reason I asked "what does it mean" in the SX sense was in order to try and provide an alternate wording that wouldn't be misleading.
    – Brent.Longborough
    Commented Mar 2, 2012 at 14:19
  • 1
    Brent's question was born from a chat conversation on TeX.StackExchange which originated from my remark that having so prominent a -4150 in rep was not very nice, particularly for the "voting fraud" wording. I know what it is about (it happened some months ago, actually), but my perception is that such a wording might be misleading for the unexperienced user that happens to look at rep pages. I don't like very much having such a big figure in my rep page, but can live with it. :) The new wording seems quite better.
    – egreg
    Commented Mar 2, 2012 at 18:17
  • 2
    It now reads "Serial upvoting reversed". That still doesn't make it clear that egreg did nothing wrong. And there's still a wacking great red line where there shouldn't be.
    – Andrew Stacey
    Commented Mar 8, 2012 at 19:39

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .