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I've noticed that all answers here have 1 single downvote. I don't remember if they all appeared together, but it just made me think one single user might have stumbled on this question and downvoted everything.

Maybe this is not the case, but I was wondering whether this kind of behavior is also caught as serial voting.

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  • 11
    No, that is not serial voting. It is fine. All those answers are bad.
    – rene Mod
    Commented May 11, 2023 at 12:36
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    Even if it is the same user, so what? Someone could very well think every answer is bad. Serial voting (up or down) refers to targeting a single user, not any number of answers to a question.
    – Aaron Bertrand Staff
    Commented May 11, 2023 at 12:37
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    Was there seriously not a single previous awk question with answers that addressed the problem faced by the OP: stackoverflow.com/search?q=%5Bawk%5D+sort+dates ? There is still room for another 4 answers? Wow.
    – rene Mod
    Commented May 11, 2023 at 12:50
  • @gnat the linked question is specifically about the practice of downvoting all answers because the question sucks and how common that is. This question is about whether downvoting all of the answers on a question (regardless of the question's quality) trips the automated serial voting scripts and/or is a violation of the serial voting policy.
    – Robert Columbia
    Commented May 11, 2023 at 21:24
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    @RobertColumbia I think duplicate clearly demonstrates that such cases are not related to serial voting nor to anything negative at all. Besides, its answers provide solid reasoning for why this is generally considered normal and healthy behavior
    – gnat
    Commented May 11, 2023 at 21:55
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    Related: The meta effect
    – This_is_NOT_a_forum
    Commented May 12, 2023 at 11:13

1 Answer 1

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You can check the users' reputation tab to check the exact timestamps of the downvote:

User Timestamp
RARE Kpop Manifesto 2023-05-09 14:22:04Z
Enlico 2023-05-10 14:08:12Z
Ed Morton 2023-05-10 14:08:15Z
oguz ismail 2023-05-10 14:08:17Z

So, yes, three of those votes were cast almost simultaneously. Does that make it serial voting? Not necessarily; I can imagine somebody reading the entire Q&A page, comparing the answers, and then make a decision all the answers are not useful, and finally casting a couple of downvotes in quick succession. There's nothing wrong with that, it's definitely not serial voting which is almost always aimed at a single user (a notable exception being voting on random posts just to get the Electorate badge).

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    I might even distinguish the exception as something explicitly not serial, but a better word is not coming to mind yet.
    – Aaron Bertrand Staff
    Commented May 11, 2023 at 12:56
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    @AaronBertrand "user targetted voting" might be more precise.
    – VLAZ
    Commented May 11, 2023 at 13:02

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