Are there some ways to prevent abuse from moderators? [duplicate]

Question

I don't know why, but I got my account suspended for 1 month for allegedly voting myself, but I don't remember doing that in the last 1.5 years roughly speaking. The only reason I voted for myself from a different account was because someone downvoted like 10 questions in a row, I might be misremembering, but it wasn't to get more reputation points, it was to revert the negative votes I was getting from the same person. If I wanted more reputation points, I wouldn't have made a new account and lost 10k reputation points by doing so.

But after it was found I did that a long time ago, I got suspended and my accounts got merged, I didn't want that, because I wanted to maintain privacy and didn't want people to know that I was the same person for various privacy reasons, so I really think it should have been handled more professionally. They could have disabled my secondary account, because I didn't use it for a very long time, instead of merging it.

Now, I am worried that a moderator might suspend me again for creating some accounts on Stack Overflow for privacy reasons. Is there a way to prevent moderation abuses?

Answer 1

I voted for myself from a different account

It's at this point that an alt account stops being "for privacy" and starts being "for cheating". There are no exceptions to this — upvoting yourself (from another account) is against the rules. Don't cheat.

The best thing you can do at this point is to find all those alt accounts that weren't merged with the rest and contact support so that they can be handled. This allows all the fraudulent votes to be reversed with the least amount of pain for all involved. (Ideally, you should have done this before being suspended at all.) Contacting support with this information, in fact, is what's recommended by default for accounts that have been suspended for sock puppetting.

Contacting support is also a good option when you think you've been serially voted (if you've waited 24 hours and the votes haven't been automatically reversed). You can also flag for a moderator (but they would have to pass the message to staff anyway if there are votes that need to be reversed).

PS: There is no "abuse from moderators" here. Your case was handled by the "Community Management Team".

Answer 2

Well, you did something wrong and there were consequences.

Such is life.

I don't know why, but I got my account suspended for 1 month for allegedly voting myself, but I don't remember doing that in the last 1.5 years roughly speaking.

Well - to get a quick dictionary definition of allegedly... "used to convey that something is claimed to be the case or have taken place, although there is no proof."

The only reason I voted for myself from a different account was because someone downvoted like 10 questions in a row, I might be misremembering, but it wasn't to get more reputation points, it was to revert the negative votes I was getting from the same person.

Well that's the very definition of voting fraud.

If someone had 'voted 10 questions in a row' it should have been reverted automatically. If not you should have flagged it for moderator attention. While we can't see who voted for who, the CMs can. That said...

It probably wasn't one vote. Generally there has to be a certain level of obvious fraud, and the moment we're talking about account mergers and suspensions, there's community managers and moderator investigations involved. There's more to the story than "one stray vote years ago".

But after it was found I did that a long time ago, I got suspended and my accounts got merged, I didn't want that, because I wanted to maintain privacy and didn't want people to know that I was the same person for various privacy reasons, so I really think it should have been handled more professionally. They could have disabled my secondary account, because I didn't use it for a very long time, instead of merging it.

Well - that's also a consequence of both your accounts interacting. It might be worth reading and familiarising yourself with how to use alternate accounts ethically on the network

Having an alternate account for privacy or security is fine. You just need to ensure an extremely high level of seperation between them

You broke the rules and honestly, I don't think you've told us the whole story. That said, This should be a learning experience - the moderation team is here to help. If you suspect voting fraud - flag it for attention. If you have an alternate account, NEVER EVER interact with your posts on another account. Don't even interact with the same posts on your accounts. Keep them separate and you should be fine

Answer 3

Your argument for why you shouldn't have been banned:

It was a long time ago.

Just because it happened a long time ago doesn't make it any less of an offense.

Your justification for what you did that got you banned:

I was trying to reverse serial downvoting.

If you really were serially downvoted, the system would adjust those downvotes and you'd earn back the rep. Secondly, if the downvotes were undeserved, other voters would compensate for this by upvoting the post. Your first argument is...not a good one, and your second one is just fallacious.

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As for your complaint about privacy, I can't speak to that, but you need to offer more details. Here is a list of valid reasons to have a sockpuppet, and none of what you've said here seems to fulfill any of those. In fact, what you seem to have done falls under the category of 'not good reasons': you voted for your own posts. That's a no-no.

In my opinion, from what you've described, there's nothing that a moderator has done wrong. But this post has some options for what you can do if you really feel wronged. But your current argument is unlikely to gain much traction, as show the 5 downvotes this post has already garnered.