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Although less in number, there are some users who has a habit of regularly down-voting the questions which they don't like personally. They do not leave a comment for down-voting. They just comment something.

I know that there is no rule like one need to comment before downvote, although it is a friendly gesture.

But the important aspect is the rationality behind the down-voting. There should be some rationale behind a down-vote and it should not be just a personal bias. Is it true?

If true, then how to handle such users?

You can observe that whenever they come to site and browse the questions, a plenty of down-voting happens.

It is not a big issue for users with high reputations, but it is surely an issue for new users and site development.

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  • 1
    Btw nothing can be done. None can stop users from downvoting.
    – Rickross
    Jan 12, 2021 at 7:29
  • @Rickross may be true, but sometimes it leads to down-vote war. :(
    – hanugm
    Jan 12, 2021 at 7:31
  • 1
    I don't think there's anything in the SE rules/CoC to thwart serial downvoters as long as they are guilty of no more than equal opportunity downvoting, which appears to be the case here. On other SE sites I've seen users with 0/1000+ upvote-to-downvote ratios carry on with downvoting, no problem. Given a sufficiently large number of votes on a crowd voting platform outlier noise should disappear, but I think this is where the real issue with HSE - lack of engagement and upvotes - gets in the way.
    – iruvar
    Jan 12, 2021 at 18:09
  • 1
    I have noticed more and more of my answers first get upvotes and then a day later, all the upvotes are neutralized by downvotes. No idea who does that, and no comments explaining anything. This site should show who the upvoters and downvoters are. At least on Quora, you see the upvoters, and you can check what their own viewpoints are from their profile/answers. This voting anonymity is not helpful in taking action against rogue downvoters.
    – RamAbloh
    Jan 13, 2021 at 0:01
  • 2
    @RamAbloh, your answers must have run afoul of some sectarian ideology or the other, or perhaps you incurred someone's wrath by asking to take not too literal a perspective on some scriptural matter
    – iruvar
    Jan 13, 2021 at 2:06
  • 2
    @iruvar yes, you're right. That's what comes from not actually studying the scriptures in their proper tradition. Those who claim to defend tradition cannot believe that fact that tradition itself has symbolic interpretation. They think "symbolism" is modern. It is in fact very ancient - since the time of "two birds on a tree".
    – RamAbloh
    Jan 14, 2021 at 0:12
  • Such users make censorship raise
    – user22667
    Jan 14, 2021 at 5:57
  • 2
    @hanugm For example, look at this comment. Here he downvotes not out of bias but out of ignorance. According to him Temples are recent and hence not addressed in scriptures. Where as Temple Vastu and constructions are detailed in Agamas. So, what can we do with these users? Such degree of intolerance is unacceptable particularly since he proclaims himself to be a monk.
    – Rickross
    Jan 15, 2021 at 7:22
  • 1
    @Rickross I didn't think that ignorance might be the reason. Yeah, true.
    – hanugm
    Jan 15, 2021 at 11:06
  • 1
    Ignorance and bias both can be reason. @hanugm
    – Rickross
    Jan 15, 2021 at 11:10
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    Funny to note those who keep talking up symbolic interpretation have absolutely no grounding in basic tenets of Hinduism. In all likelihood they are inspired by Abrahamic religions changing their narrative over the centuries, and are adamant to draw same parallels for Hinduism. When someone disagrees with their view then they become intolerant and then try to argue from Appeal to Authority,
    – Artist Formerly Known As CSD
    Jan 16, 2021 at 6:57
  • 1
    It is recommended to focus on content rather than user. The question has been edited accordingly.
    – Pandya Mod
    Jan 26, 2021 at 7:03

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
5

Both downvoting and upvoting for personal bias, favouritism are or should be discouraged.

According to the reference below, one must

a. upvote a question if the question: 1. shows research efforts 2. is plain awesome 3. is useful

b. downvote a question if the question: 1. unclear 2. shows no effort, etc.

c. upvote an answer if the answer: 1. is clear 2. explains the concept

d. downvote an answer if the answer: 1. doesn't answer the question 2. makes no sense 3. is incorrect, etc.

Reference: When should I vote?

The same principle can be or should be followed here.

This doesn't always happen here as we saw recently a personal question got 7 or 8 upvotes (No hard feelings here :) ), whereas thought provoking questions got highly downvoted.

Discriminative votes- A serious issue

In my opinion, if an answer receives downvotes that really doesn't deserve downvotes or vice versa, moderator(s) should necessarily remove those. Let's say this answer for example. Let's say it receives 15 upvotes and 10 downvotes, it makes sense to remove those downvotes.

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-4

Users can downvote and even vote-to-delete posts with or without a proper reason.

But the important aspect is the rationality behind the down-voting. There should be some rationale behind a down-vote and it should not be just a personal bias. Is it true?

People downvote for all kinds of reasons, for example, here, you state that you downvoted and deleted two of my answers because they are "anti-scriptural":

All answers should be perspectives based on scriptural statements available. They should not be based on the statements of some modern (non-Sanathan) scholars contradicting scriptures.

There are several questions on the site that cannot be answered using scriptures (especially under the tag). There are cases when one scripture contradicts another. For texts like Mahābhārata which are huge, there can be several contradictions within the same text. Yet, you've made your own "vote down all posts that are anti-scriptural" rule to downvote and delete answers that don't agree with certain aspects of scriptures. Likewise, everyone has their own reasons for downvoting, sometimes rational, sometimes irrational. Also, what appears irrational to the poster could be rational to the downvoter.

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    How do u know who downvoted ur post?
    – YDS
    Jan 25, 2021 at 3:52
  • Just a guess, same as OP did here with another user. @YDS
    – Say No To Censorship
    Jan 25, 2021 at 18:11
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    Why shouldn't I assume I know who downvoted my post?. This type of argument and debate is discouraged.
    – Pandya Mod
    Jan 26, 2021 at 6:51
  • 2
    It's funny you didn't mention this to OP when he was attacking Swami Vishvananda and it was getting lot of upvotes since Jan 12. Why act now after 10 days when most of the damage has been done? Also, why didn't you delete OP's post instead of editing it? OP has even deleted two of my answers. So there is good reason to believe he's also one of the downvoters. Also, you seem to be more concerned about anonymous downvoters than users who are abusing their privileges by deleting posts they don't like. @Pandya
    – Say No To Censorship
    Jan 26, 2021 at 19:42

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