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I've answered a question:

Casting Dynamic and var to Object in C#

It got me hundreds of reps daily, the votes exceed any of questions I've answered for the past few months.

I think this question is not difficult to answer, and there're also good answers. And I believe I'm not used to be a "famous user". Thus I suspect that this is not a normal phenomenon.

So, how can I know the votes were not the result of cheating?

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  • 3
    Sorry, but what are you asking?
    – Michael Petrotta
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 4:52
  • 4
    The question itself has been viewed over 800 times already... why is your answer having 34 votes so surprising? Do you have any other reason to suspect cheating other than "I've never had that many votes before"?
    – animuson StaffMod
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 4:53
  • @MichaelPetrotta: I'm asking that, how can I know the reps is come from normal users, and not somebody creates lot of accounts to do that.
    – Ken Kin
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 4:53
  • 12
    Don't wonder. I create a new account every few days just to vote that answer up.
    – Anthony Pegram
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 4:54
  • @user414076: Why you do that?
    – Ken Kin
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 4:55
  • 8
    Because it's nicer than creating new accounts just to vote that answer down.
    – Anthony Pegram
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 4:56
  • 4
    I'd say congratulations. As long as you aren't doing vote fraud, congratulations on an excellent answer.
    – Linuxios
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 4:59
  • If the system and the moderators were convinced that the up-votes were not authentic, there'd be some more or less appropriate correction applied. They're pretty good at spotting voting fraud; since they haven't, you're probably OK.
    – Jonathan Leffler
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 4:59
  • 1
    @KenKin Stop worrying. If there is something fishy going on it would be reversed at some point. If you're not involved, there is no problem.
    – Bart
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 4:59
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    hahahaha. Anyway, seems like C# is really popular.
    – Old Checkmark
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 5:03
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    @KenKin: user414076 was joking. He didn't actually vote for you multiple times. There's no indication that anybody voted for you twice.
    – David Robinson
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 5:31
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    @KenKin for me, it was clearly sarcasm. No-one would confess to a vote fraud
    – John Dvorak
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 5:38
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    @KenKin: If his original comment wasn't obviously a joke, what about his response to you? Because it's nicer than creating new accounts just to vote that answer down. This is funny stuff.
    – David Robinson
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 5:43
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    @DavidRobinson It is kind of hilarious that we're even having a debate about whether that was a joke.
    – user200500
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 5:43
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    Did you really just delete the text of your answer and replace it with For people who vote this answer more than once with different account, with this revision, now you can take it away.? Is it crazy to feel like you're just messing with us?
    – David Robinson
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 5:53

3 Answers 3

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What happened has nothing to do with cheating: you wrote a great and very detailed answer, the question was in a popular tag and got many views, and both the question and answer were upvoted by many viewers based on how useful your answer was.

There's sometimes a snowballing effect on questions: highly upvoted questions get more views, which give it more votes, and it just keeps reinforcing itself. My guess is that it reached the Hot Questions tab at the top left of each page in Stack Exchange (though it doesn't appear to be there now), which causes questions to explode in popularity.

As one personal example: I've been active on the site for more than a year, answered over 500 questions, and never got more than 13 upvotes on any one answer. Then one day I answered a simple Python question with a rather straightforward answer. For whatever reason it hit the Hot Questions list, after which it received 23 votes, far more than any other answer I'd given (and it wasn't even the highest-voted answer on that question, by a long shot!)

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  • So, for concluding, I got no way to know; it's the business of SO and not mine?
    – Ken Kin
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 6:25
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    @KenKin: No, in conclusion there's no conceivable reason to think that there was any cheating. Popular questions happen all the time, and your answer was excellent and well-researched. And who would create many accounts just to upvote a stranger's answer? Besides which, the view count for the question is correspondingly high. Do you think someone also faked all the views?
    – David Robinson
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 6:32
  • I don't know how the view is counted. But if it's counted with different IPs, some DSL service provider release floating IPs to the users.
    – Ken Kin
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 6:37
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    @KenKin: But why do you think someone would go to all the work to fake both votes and views just to upvote your answer? Why is that more plausible than that it got on the Hot Questions list, that a lot of people saw it and approved because it's well written, and upvoted?
    – David Robinson
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 6:43
  • Well, perhaps just because I feel an trivial answer of a non-famous user got high vote in short time is not looked reasonable. But I think if there's a mechanism to let people view recently popular question(which I'm not aware of), then snowballing effect just making sense. And what is that mechanism?
    – Ken Kin
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 6:51
  • @KenKin: At the upper left corner of the page, click StackExchange. You'll get a box that has four tabs, the first of which is "hot questions." This shows a list of recent questions across Stack Exchange that are popular (a combination of votes, views, number of answers and recency: see here for more info.) A question with as many votes as the one you answered almost certainly made it to the top or close, and that's visible from all across the SE network so it tends to get many votes.
    – David Robinson
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 6:55
  • As one example, the question currently 2nd on the Hot Questions list, asked just 11 hours ago, has 39 votes, and the top answer has 55.
    – David Robinson
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 6:59
  • It is not precise for a particular tag though. And I also see question of all site. But thanks for that, I never noticed there.
    – Ken Kin
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 7:02
  • @KenKin: I don't know what that has to do with anything. The reason the C# tag helps is that, as the most traveled tag, it tends to get the original upvotes quite quickly (on a very good answer). This increases the chances it gets on the Hot Questions list. It's true there are questions from all sites, but that works both ways: users on Programmers or other sites see it. Users tend to check the Hot Questions frequently (I certainly do) so once a question is there it often attracts surprising attention.
    – David Robinson
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 7:04
  • Thank you very much for both the answer and the conversation.
    – Ken Kin
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 7:13
  • @KenKin: You're very welcome, glad I could help
    – David Robinson
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 7:21
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Stop worrying.

This is what I do when I face a programming problem:

  1. Do Google.
  2. Most of the time I got something from SO.
  3. I check the SO results first.
  4. If my problem is solved I upvote all the helping answers, and upvote the question too.

I assume that many more people do the same. If you had provided a good answer to a problem that other people may also face you will get upvotes from time to time. So I don't think you have anything to worry otherwise you yourself is doing anything wrong.

And I guess there are some strong mechanisms to detect these cheating in SO, though I don't know the details of the algorithm. If the moderators are not suspecting that you are cheating, you don't have anything to worry.

EDIT: I just noticed that the answer was made yesterday, as pointed by David Robinson in the comment. From the wordings of the question I though you are talking about an old answer. Again, you have nothing to worry unless you yourself is doing any fraud. Everyday there are such great answers in SO that receives many upvotes. For example, this was answered 16 hours ago and got 67 upvotes.

And you have to be a "famous user" to get upvote is a complete wrong idea.

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  • 2
    I don't believe this is the situation that happened to the OP. The question was asked yesterday: I don't think 35 people happened upon it from Google in those 24 hours and upvoted. Rather, I think he simply gave a great answer to a simple question and it became popular.
    – David Robinson
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 5:30
  • @David Robinson, just noticed that. From the question's wording I supposed that it's an old answer. Editing my answer now.
    – taskinoor
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 5:31
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The motive behind the StackOverflow is to help people with your skills, Reputations are just to make it more interesting. StackOverflow has no benefit to give you extra upvotes and and no loss over your downvotes. People upvote the nice answers not the famous people. The answer you posted is helpful and its a common problem many users faces the same 800 views are on that post, out of 800, 35 users find your solution working for them so they upvote.

So do not worry just help others if you not finding reputations interesting leave it. I am sure one day you will believe it.

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  • Votes help me to know what answer is helpful to people. But if one man vote more than once with another account, I lose the authenticity of how it's really helpful.
    – Ken Kin
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 5:16
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    @KenKin Get it out of your head: Rep is not always a good indicator of expertise.
    – Mysticial
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 5:16
  • if it happens!!! an automated script find it revert it and punish him :) so don't worry
    – Zaheer Ahmed
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 5:17
  • @Mysticial: I revised, I think the word "votes" is more correct than "reps" about what I want to say.
    – Ken Kin
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 5:29
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    @KenKin Well, it doesn't really change anything. There are simple answers with hundreds of votes. And there are great answers that get very few.
    – Mysticial
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 5:39

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