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I'm relatively new in StackOverflow, even though my account is 2 years old, I started actively contributing to site a few months ago.

I'm trying to do my best and while doing it, hoping to learn more than I currently know.

Today, for the first time, most of my answers were serially upvoted by someone/something I don't know.

And felt worried about it, I thought that this will negatively affect my account standing by creating an indication that I used a sockpuppet (I think that's what it's called)

Those reputation bonuses were reversed by the automatic mechanism a few moments ago, however, the upvotes and the "Serial upvoting reversed" event is still visible.

I'm acting incredibly picky while building my reputation anywhere just like any serious minded person would do. Now that "Serial upvoting reversed" message stands there, giving false signals to my profile visitors that I'm cheating rather than working my hands. This is a terrible feeling.

Even though I can't prove it, I never tried to gain reputation by chicanery.

What I would like to know is, if there's a serial upvote incident like that happening, how should we react to it?

Can we file an abuse report to somewhere?

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    Don't worry about it if you are innocent. We've all been serially upvoted and serially downvoted. No need to file an abuse report unless you see actual abuse that hasn't been corrected.
    – Awesome Poodles
    Mar 7, 2012 at 4:23
  • Close enough to a duplicate of "What do I do if I suspect someone has downvoted a lot of my posts?"?
    – Awesome Poodles
    Mar 7, 2012 at 4:26
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    @BrockAdams Well I think being serially upvoted raises suspicion that you personally tried to cheat for increased reputation, however being serially downvoted clearly states that some other party did the action.
    – Cengiz Can
    Mar 7, 2012 at 4:29
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    No, serial upvoting does not automatically raise that suspicion. I'd wager that most serial upvotes are people trying to reward those they've found helpful. Heck, I serial upvoted for just that reason, myself, once. ... Of course, you are acting a bit guilty. (^_^)
    – Awesome Poodles
    Mar 7, 2012 at 4:40
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    Wow, I am quite surprised that that message is public. I'd report it as a bug actually.
    – user154510
    Mar 7, 2012 at 5:25
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    98% of all sock puppet votes come from just two places in the world. You live in one of them. Some sort of cultural thing I guess, I have no insight. Talk to your team mates and friends, ask them to stop being helpful.
    – Uphill Luge
    Mar 7, 2012 at 13:48
  • @BrockAdams I see what you did there. :)
    – Cengiz Can
    Mar 7, 2012 at 17:01
  • @Matthew Read I think it should be tagged as reversed when done automatically and "reversed (self reported)" when reported. That will indicate at least a tiny bit of innocence.
    – Cengiz Can
    Mar 7, 2012 at 17:02
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    @aphex: Did you learn something? It's okay to upvote things from your friends when they are good answers, but going through and upvoting everything is mighty suspicious. The computer will catch that and remove those votes, which helps no one. (Also, please keep all communications on this site in English. Thanks!)
    – Cody Gray - on strike
    Mar 8, 2012 at 1:09
  • @aphex I wish you all the best in your CS studies. Please only vote on what you think is useful. Regards.
    – Cengiz Can
    Mar 9, 2012 at 0:05
  • @CengizCan thank you so much :)
    – aphex
    Mar 9, 2012 at 14:46
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    There's a request to hide this message: Please hide “serial upvoting reversed” entries in the public reputation history
    – ThinkingStiff
    Jul 25, 2012 at 22:28
  • @CengizCan, Seems like someone is trying to get you banned.
    – Pacerier
    Aug 29, 2014 at 3:49

2 Answers 2

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That message isn't really any indication of you being a bad person. We can't control the actions of others users. Most likely what happened is some user read a question or answer of yours that they liked and went through your profile upvoting everything of yours. Similarly, when a user reads something of yours they don't like, they might go through and downvote everything of yours.

I have a couple serial upvote reversals on my reputation history, and a serial downvote reversal here on meta. The staff can already see when this occurs and if it's frequent with one user or suspicious looking in general, they can take further action. All you can do is not worry about it.

Related: What is serial voting and how does it affect me?

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    I wasn't aware of the fact that this sort of behavior is so common.
    – Cengiz Can
    Mar 7, 2012 at 16:45
  • I wasn't aware either, and I'm glad there's a name for it. A couple of weeks ago I started seeing my rep climb and was inundated with "Nice Answer" and "Enlightened" badges while somebody upvoted most of my +9 answers to +10.
    – Michael Berkowski
    Mar 14, 2012 at 13:20
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If you feel you've been the target of serial upvoting, flag one of your posts for moderator attention, ask for a rep-recalc .

Also, there's an automated system that performs a vote 'undo' when a certain pattern of upvoting is seen, this could also be triggered.

See this link: I was just attacked by an onslaught of downvotes! What do I do?

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    rep recalc is no longer needed, the reversals happen almost immediately now.
    – Sathyajith Bhat
    Mar 7, 2012 at 4:43
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    Since it's automated, why call in a mod?
    – Mat
    Mar 7, 2012 at 6:13
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    Please don't flag for moderator attention. It is very, very unlikely they will even do anything (if they even can). They're just leave it and let the voting fraud script catch it whenever it runs. If the voting fraud script doesn't catch it, then it's very likely a moderator won't do anything about it either. I'm not sure they even have the ability to reverse votes (probably only devs).
    – animuson StaffMod
    Mar 14, 2012 at 21:29
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    Moderators cannot mess with votes except by deleting/merging account and that wouldn't happen in such a case.
    – ThiefMaster
    Jul 25, 2012 at 22:01

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