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Last I night I downvoted a guy's answer because I thought it was wrong and I commented why I thought it was wrong. The guy threatened to report me for "unnecessary down voting". Could I really be punished for what I did or was he just trying to intimidate me into undoing the down vote? Here is the post if you want to see it. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14000623/php-upload-issue-with-array/14000656#comment19327519_14000656

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he just trying to intimidate me into undoing the down vote?

Your votes are yours. The asker didn't like getting downvoted and threatened to report you.

There is no one to report to, however.

There is an algorithm that detects serial downvoting, but unless you have been doing that, you have nothing to worry about.

See What is serial voting and how does it affect me?

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He was just trying to intimidate you. There is no such thing as "unnecessary downvoting" officially, so there's no offence to report, and such a flag would certainly be declined. Whether you downvote a post is your decision.

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    Is what he did of intimidating me against the rules?
    – DrinkJavaCodeJava
    Dec 22, 2012 at 16:50
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    @redelman431 - it is not nice, which is our #1 rule (be nice).
    – Oded
    Dec 22, 2012 at 16:51
  • @redelman431: If the poster continues to do that, that certainly would be frowned upon. You could flag such a comment for moderator attention if you feel it is systemic.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Dec 22, 2012 at 16:51
  • @redelman431 What Oded said. If it's done repeatedly, a flag would be in order, but I don't think a first-time offence warrants a flag.
    – Daniel Fischer
    Dec 22, 2012 at 16:52
  • At the time I downvoted him, I thought his answer was wrong and I told him why.
    – DrinkJavaCodeJava
    Dec 22, 2012 at 16:53
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    @redelman431: That user is then asking not to be told why he was downvoted in the future. His loss.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Dec 22, 2012 at 16:57
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    @redelman431 And that's the correct way. Telling why is even the nice thing to do, since it makes it easy to improve the answer. Some people don't take explained downvotes kindly, however, and that leads to unpleasant situations like this (I may consider someone an idiot if I don't agree with the stated reason for a downvote, but I'm always happy to get an explanation if I get one).
    – Daniel Fischer
    Dec 22, 2012 at 16:58

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