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I see the message "Serial voting was reversed" in the Recent achievements list.

What does that mean?

Edit: Again, serial voting was reversed last night. I wonder if this is happening more often?

Edit: And yet again last night serial voting was reversed, then today a series of downvotes of very old posts. Oh well.

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Basically, the system detected that someone has consistently downvoted your content, this looks more like a personal action rather than your answers being "bad", so the serial voting has been reversed.

See the help page: https://workplace.stackexchange.com/help/serial-voting-reversed

And Meta explanation What is serial voting and how does it affect me?

Voting fraud is the systematic voting against correct voting rationales. Fraud most often happens with a single user continually voting (up or down) on many of your posts within a short period of time. This is not considered normal behavior and the system will not allow it.

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  • 2
    Thanks! Very odd...
    – Joe Strazzere
    Jun 20 '19 at 10:12
  • 12
    This generally happens when you get someone wound up on a single answer, so they decide to retaliate by downvoting everything in sight just out of spite.
    – user44108
    Jun 20 '19 at 10:14
  • I see. I can't remember that happening before. Oh well.
    – Joe Strazzere
    Jun 20 '19 at 10:15
  • 1
    Yeah, this has happened to me at least once.....the system will catch serial UP and DOWN voting.
    – Neo
    Jun 20 '19 at 11:53
  • 6
    If I recall, I believe it can occur with serial up-votes as well.
    – David K
    Jun 20 '19 at 12:43
  • 7
    Very strange. A new blast of about 15 downvotes in the span of a few minutes today, including some very old answers. Someone is unhappy I guess.
    – Joe Strazzere
    Jun 20 '19 at 14:30
  • 4
    Certainly looks that way. We'll keep an eye on things and issue some education if required. You should get those votes back tomorrow.
    – user44108
    Jun 20 '19 at 14:36
  • 4
    I just got +30 with the phrase "User was removed". Perhaps that's it. If so, I'm pretty sure I know who it was.
    – Joe Strazzere
    Jun 20 '19 at 22:03
  • 2
    I've had it both ways on SO. I think I know who it was in both cases (one user was very unhappy with a comment I left on their answer, and another was so happy with my answer he went on an upvote spree.)
    – berry120
    Jun 21 '19 at 21:36
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    To be fair, voting sprees can also be valid. If I think your answer was interesting, I might check out your other top answers and upvote the good ones
    – lucidbrot
    Jun 24 '19 at 15:33
  • 1
    @lucidbrot You'd think that, but that's not the case: workplace.meta.stackexchange.com/a/5775/92050
    – Belle
    Jun 25 '19 at 11:05
  • @Cyonis I would argue that if I think your answer was interesting and check out your other top answers, I would also check out the other answers in the thread - at least the ones voted higher than yours. I assume, then it should be a light-grey area(?)
    – lucidbrot
    Jun 25 '19 at 19:26
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    @MisterPositive Interesting, because I've done serial upvoting in the past before when discovering a new user on the site and going through their past answers. I'd only upvote maybe half of their posts though not all so I hope that would still have gone through as valid votes. :)
    – Lilienthal Mod
    Jun 26 '19 at 8:50
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    @lucidbrot A difference between a valid voting spree and most invalid voting sprees is that any valid voting spree requires the voter to read at least the answers voted on and probably also the questions. This takes time, so casting e.g. 8 votes in a minute is very unlikely to be from someone who has carefully read what they've been voting on. I think the system makes an attempt to not automatically mark 'sprees' spread out over normal time periods as fraud. (but it may keep a record anyway, to e.g. do mark it as fraud if it forms a suspicious pattern)
    – Discrete lizard
    Jul 3 '19 at 8:34
  • Ah, man. I was wondering where my stalkers went. I actually kind of miss them ...
    – Wesley Long
    Jul 10 '19 at 17:03

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