Change the criteria for vote retention upon account removal

Question

Earlier today some user deleted their profile and caused a lot of confusion because that user was an active voter, and that the reversal of their votes due to the removal of their accounts caused huge reputation losses for many users across many sites. (One user lost 900+ reputation points on a single site, as a result.)

People have figured out that the deleted user didn't have high reputations on those sites, and thus didn't fall into the "vote retention" class when their account was removed.

Sometimes, but not all that often, an active voter isn't an active Q/A participant, and as a consequence doesn't necessarily have a lot of reputation.

And because the intention to retain votes from deleted users who had a lot of votes was to "prevent major disruption", and that the original criterion "high reputation" was chosen based on the assertion that "high rep users tends to have a lot of votes", it seems that the actual reason is "a lot of votes". So here comes

Feature request 1:

I would like to propose that the vote retention criterion be changed to retain votes (unless evidence at any point of vote fraud from the voter, or unless the voter has had all accounts across the SE network deleted by SE staff), from users who have a lot of votes, rather than from user who have only high reputation, so as not to create an unnecessary cloud of confusion and frustration among the users who've been voted by them.

Feature request 2:

Can we reverse the reputation change discussed in this thread (same thread as linked in the 1st paragraph)?

Answer 1

@amimuson said in his answer:

"High reputation" is a generic way to explain what happens that isn't super confusing. A help center article isn't meant to go into all the explicit details, but rather just highlight the generic functionalities. Users get held up based on their number of votes and/or the number of people they've voted for. Reputation is not actually considered at all in the check. (Emphasis Added.)

This does not make sense. Obviously, the Learn More explanation following User Was Removed has created a lot of confusion among many users, most of whom are experienced users on at least one site, and not easily confused. Moreover the Learn More explanation is obviously incorrect, not merely simplified for the easily confused. As its last paragraph states:

This removal occurs whenever a user is deleted, unless that user had a very high reputation score. Because high-reputation users have usually cast a great many votes, removing all of them could be that much more disruptive to other users. In such cases, the staff use a special deletion that preserves the votes, resulting in no reputation change for those who had been voted on by that user. (Emphasis Added.)

I suggest the following edit:

This removal occurs whenever a user is deleted, unless that user had been very active. In such cases, the staff use a special deletion that preserves the votes, resulting in no reputation change for those who had been voted on by that user. There are circumstances, however, when the removal may occur even for deletions of very active users. Go to [link] for a more complete explanation. (Proposed edit emphasized.)

The proposed edit is now a second draft, and could undoubtedly be improved. So, improve it. Or throw it out and rewrite it. Don't leave misleading info in a prominent place. If there is an explanation which is correct, give the link to it. Please!

Second Suggestion

The Powers that Be on SE must have known that the recent action resulting in massive removal of rep points across the universe of SE would create a major kerfuffle. Why not post a short, simple notice on all the Metas of the sites affected saying, in essence:

We have taken an action that has resulted in the removal of many reputation points for many users on many sites. Rest assured that we were obliged to take this action, and that it was thoroughly discussed and reviewed. We are sorry, but it is impossible to reverse any of the reputation losses.

Again, this is a first draft which can, and probably should, be edited.

Bottom line: Don't treat us like mushrooms!

Answer 2

Regarding request 1:

That's already how it works. "High reputation" is a generic way to explain what happens that isn't super confusing. A help center article isn't meant to go into all the explicit details, but rather just highlight the generic functionalities. Users get held up based on their number of votes and/or the number of people they've voted for. Reputation is not actually considered at all in the check.

Regarding request 2:

No, we cannot do that.

Answer 3

I generally support the idea but at the same time I think we don't actually need it.

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StackExchange should just take more seriously the fact, that our votes are frozen a couple of minutes after casting a vote... well, until a Q/A is edited.

I find the same should apply to user removal. They've casted their votes so they are frozen forever. Their Q/A won't get deleted so why are their votes treated differently?

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It looks like we need more consistency about how contributions of removed accounts are treated. Currently their voting is undone but their posts not. This behavior is what triggers all these confusion.

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Either everything should be deleted/undone or nothing.

Answer 4

Won't Fix

At any point in time, a "user" responsible for having cast upvotes can be "deleted". The votes are private and you don't have access to the names. That's all status-bydesign.

https://youtu.be/ioPa1URjZ_Y?t=37

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On a serious note, if you want to see this feature implemented, you'd better find a new way for them to zap a user's reputation.