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I noticed that some of my votes on the answers to this question were no longer shown as highlighted. Furthermore, I got a message (as I was voting) reminding me to vote on questions as well. This was strange because I had already voted on that question. But when I checked, my question vote was not recorded either.

Seems like a bug?

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  • 2
    Could be a bad network connection. The highlight when you first click is faked until the background request gets through, after which it becomes official (saved). If that background request failed, the highlight would've been dropped and as far as the server is concerned, you never did vote there
    – Izkata
    Commented Jan 2, 2015 at 13:57
  • 2
    Interesting, the same thing happened to me... I'm sure I voted on several of the name suggestions and I'm sure there were other votes on them. After the first couple votes, I got the pop up about voting on questions as well. But a couple hours later on another PC computer, most of the answers had 0 votes - not mine, not any others that were there before.
    – Ward - Trying Codidact
    Commented Jan 2, 2015 at 14:21
  • @Ward: interesting, was that only recently? If so, it might be a recently introduced bug.
    – Reinstate Monica - Goodbye SE
    Commented Jan 2, 2015 at 14:26
  • 1
    This was last night (call it 12 hours ago when I voted, then 10 hours ago that I checked and the votes weren't recorded), while I was voting on the same meta quesion you linked to.
    – Ward - Trying Codidact
    Commented Jan 2, 2015 at 14:55
  • 1
    @Ward: perhaps there was an automated response countering all the downvotes?!
    – Reinstate Monica - Goodbye SE
    Commented Jan 2, 2015 at 15:17
  • 2
    I suspect Wikis is right and the serial voting reversal script caught a few people, Sachin posted most of the answers on that question.
    – Kevin Mod
    Commented Jan 2, 2015 at 15:22
  • 1
    It happened to me again! And judging by the vote counts, other votes have been reversed. If this is due to serial vote reversal, then this is clearly not a good way to poll.
    – Ward - Trying Codidact
    Commented Jan 3, 2015 at 5:44
  • 1
    It happened to me earlier tonight as well. It may be because I was voting on multiple answers in rapid succession.
    – phantom42
    Commented Jan 3, 2015 at 8:44
  • 1
    Some of my votes seems to have disappeared as well.
    – Valorum
    Commented Jan 3, 2015 at 9:43
  • 1
    Same thing happened to me, I thought it was an anomaly...
    – Gorchestopher H
    Commented Jan 8, 2015 at 22:07

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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It sure looks like it's serial vote reversal, since it happened to me twice.

The first time I voted was in the evening of Jan 1 (so it would have already been early on 2 Jan in UTC) and a few hours later those votes were gone. I voted again on the Q and some of the As but now early on 3 Jan (again, in UTC) most of those votes are gone again.

I've asked a general question about serial vote reversal on meta sites on meta.SE, to see if this can be clarified.

Although it wasn't a suggested dup when I asked my question, this has come up before on meta.SE and I even favourited it: The vote fraud script breaks legitimate polling questions - A serial downvoter's lament

The closest thing to an official answer on that earlier question seems to be:

  • yes, this is is unwanted side-effect of the serial vote reversal script
  • but it doesn't come up often enough for SE to change the script
  • if you want to do a poll, don't have just one person post all the possible answers

So in this case, if there's actually a desire to continue with the poll, different people will have to re-post the suggested names and the originals have to be deleted.

Better, since there doesn't seem to be a strong desire to change the name, would probably be to just close the poll question.

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  • Serial vote reversal did its job fine.. even in this case. You were supposed to vote on only one option.
    – Doctor Doom
    Commented Jan 3, 2015 at 9:01
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    @SachinShekhar You should have found a better way to run a poll than one that allows up and downvoting, then. Or at the very least said that you wanted people to only upvote and only upvote one answer.
    – Ward - Trying Codidact
    Commented Jan 3, 2015 at 9:05
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    @SachinShekhar - I agree with ward. You done goofed.
    – Valorum
    Commented Jan 3, 2015 at 9:41
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    @SachinShekhar: it doesn't make sense to say only vote on one option. Even if you specify that in the question (which you didn't), you have no way of verifying that people followed your instructions. People can up and downvote however they like.
    – Reinstate Monica - Goodbye SE
    Commented Jan 3, 2015 at 10:06
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    Not that it's a good solution, but if a user was to stagger their votes, would the script still reverse them? i.e. if I voted for one answer now and then waited an hour before voting for the next.
    – phantom42
    Commented Jan 3, 2015 at 15:04
  • @phantom42 - yes, been wondering that myself. Think I'll give it a go...
    – Reinstate Monica - Goodbye SE
    Commented Jan 3, 2015 at 15:25
  • @phantom42: it seems like my votes, spaced out over a few days, are sticking. Sigh sad that it is necessary.
    – Reinstate Monica - Goodbye SE
    Commented Jan 6, 2015 at 19:45

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