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I agree about down-voting due to gaming, but I don't see the reason on up-voting. Can any one game the system with up-voting?

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    In what way? Being able to up/downvote is part of the very essence of what Stack Exchange is all about. It's not 'gaming the system' it's 'using the system'.
    – JonW
    Commented Apr 19, 2013 at 15:24
  • I don't follow -- what does vote locking have to do with "gaming", and what exactly do you mean by gaming?
    – LittleBobbyTables - Au Revoir
    Commented Apr 19, 2013 at 15:24
  • Besides, why should votes not be locked? As long as the question or answer hasn't changed, why change your vote? If the answer becomes invalid (due to a feature being deprecated or whatever), leave a comment to that effect.
    – LittleBobbyTables - Au Revoir
    Commented Apr 19, 2013 at 15:25
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    @JonW & blah, the reason votes are locked is because people were gaming the system by downvoting all competing answers so that theirs would be at the top of the page, getting upvotes just for being read first, and then revoking the other downvotes after a little bit to get the 1 rep per downvote back.
    – Servy
    Commented Apr 19, 2013 at 15:30
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    @BlahBlahGrabblesnackers The answer doesn't need to change if your knowledge of that answer changes. You could read it, think it was correct, then realize a mistake in it later on and be unable to revoke the upvote.
    – Servy
    Commented Apr 19, 2013 at 15:31
  • related: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/171694/…
    – Hugo Dozois
    Commented Apr 19, 2013 at 15:31
  • @Servy - interesting about downvoting competing answers for more visibility, I didn't know that was a thing.
    – LittleBobbyTables - Au Revoir
    Commented Apr 19, 2013 at 15:34
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    @BlahBlahGrabblesnackers Well, it was several years back, and this feature was added primarily as a countermeasure to that tactic. It doesn't seem to happen (much) anymore.
    – Servy
    Commented Apr 19, 2013 at 15:36
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    I've been caught by that very thing before. I specifically remember at least one case where I misread the answer, upvoted, and then reread the question later and realized the answer was wrong. I know I could have done an edit to unlock my vote, but I didn't want the paper trail. It is a very minor issue though, so I don't know how easy it would be to implement and if it would be worth it
    – psubsee2003
    Commented Apr 19, 2013 at 15:42
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    I also ran into this recently. A question I had asked quickly obtained an answer. It seemed good so I upvoted and accepted it. However it was subtly wrong, a fact I realized it only later as an other answer came and really solved the problem. I un-accepted this wrong answer and accepted the correct one, but I couln't retract my upvote. So now this answer has an undeserved upvote.
    – Calimo
    Commented Jun 17, 2013 at 12:58

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