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It's really frustrating when you post a new question, and a person down votes it and then they close the tab. The OP can add a comment such as "Why down vote?", the post would still be down voted even though the OP fixed the issue making the down vote invalid. Then it would still be -1, unless someone up votes the post (but then this gets tricky: the up voter just wanted to fix the -1, not necessarily up vote it and give rep). So a solution: subscribe the down voter to the question, no?

That'd mean he would get notifications when OP's post is edited or new comments on the question or comment.

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  • I have never heard of or seen an incident in which someone up votes a post just to get it back up to 0. – user276768 Feb 17 '15 at 12:45
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    @Vinz243 Because voting is different on meta. Downvotes simply signify disagreement. – Doorknob Feb 17 '15 at 12:45
  • @Doorknob I think he means generally across the whole network. – user276768 Feb 17 '15 at 12:47
  • This is also discussed here. – user276768 Feb 17 '15 at 12:48
  • @Benjamin happened to me. Or this is my interpretation. Got -1 then 0 and +5 rep – Vinz243 Feb 17 '15 at 12:49
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    Benjamin - yep, it happens a fair bit, and usually people comment that they added the +1 to offset a -1 they felt was undeserved :-) – Rory Alsop Feb 17 '15 at 12:49
  • @Vinz243 Would you please link to the question? – user276768 Feb 17 '15 at 12:50
  • @RoryAlsop In that case they are also just saying that it is a good question. – user276768 Feb 17 '15 at 12:50
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    @Benjamin There's a difference between saying "this is a good question" and "this is a question that does not deserve to stand at -1." – Louis Feb 17 '15 at 17:43
  • @Louis Okay, I see what you mean. – user276768 Feb 17 '15 at 17:51
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I'm afraid this would have the opposite effect. If you auto-subscribe a downvoter to something, you're just going to annoy them and make people less likely to downvote. There's already not enough downvoting. I think all this solution would do is lead to more broken windows being left around.

What about sites that have been around for a long time? In some places I have thousands of downvotes. Many of those posts are long-since deleted, but many are not. Do I really need to be notified of a three-year-old post that has had some minor issue fixed but the underlying issue that attracted my downvote has not been addressed?

Further, auto-subscribing someone to content via some other unrelated action smells rather like a certain canned luncheon meat.

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  • That is what I am saying. – user276768 Feb 17 '15 at 17:50

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