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I just got over 3k and gained the close/reopen vote privilege, but I'm kinda wary of using it just right now because — as the title suggests — the timeline does show the voters' names.

We all know that there will be users who take that personally, and some of them might want blood-soaked revenge by hitting on the downward arrow with enormous fury. Ehm~

Yes, downvoting comes at 125 points, so who cares, right? But there's plenty of space between 125 and 3k. Even if closers' names don't appear on the close banner to those without the privilege, everyone can still see them on the question timeline. (I just double-checked with a new 1-rep account).

Why isn't the same principle applied to the timeline?

Edit: Thank you all for the interesting discussion. Maybe I'm indeed excessively concerned about my interaction with others on this site, when, in fact, we are here to help each other. I should have more faith in the community. ...and in the automatic background routines

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    Transparency is important, and I would want the information about which users voted to close/reopen to be accessible somehow. Hiding it from the banner works to prevent revenge downvoting in most cases, since most users aren't really aware that they can look at the timeline to see that information, and so I don't think it's really a problem.Go ahead and use the 3k privileges you've earned, you'll be fine.
    – cigien
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 0:14
  • 1
    @cigien I appreciate transparency, yet transparency based on privilege seems just fine to me. Close voters can't even be contacted directly, so knowing who cast the vote in practice provides no additional actionable insight to the asker
    – blackgreen Mod
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 0:18
  • 6
    @blackgreen If a question is closed or reopened by a single vote (e.g. via dupe hammer), the voter can be pinged.
    – duplode
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 0:29
  • Agree with cigien, I don't see this kind of transparency as a big issue. It can be solved too. These revenge votes are a temporary problem. I don't know if this is techncally possible, but when "revenge downvotes" pose a real problem, SO could revoke the permission to downvote for a week, for anyone owning a closed topic. They cool down.
    – Goodies
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 7:53
  • @Goodies To the best of my knowledge, there is no such capability to temporarily revoke the privilege to vote (except for the nuclear solution, which is to suspend the user). In cases of persistent serial voting, moderators may reach out to the offender according to general procedure in terms of CoC violation: leave a warning, and if merited suspend the user. And although we don't have real numbers on this, revenge voting is often suggested to be rare.
    – E_net4
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 8:04
  • 2
    I suggested it because I've had an issue last year with a certain moderator who insisted to close a topic of someone, because he judged the question was about personal things and should be closed. He was right. But meanwhile, there were lots of comments and 2 answers and this moderator took part in the discussion himself. After he posted his last opinion commit, he closed the topic within seconds. Taking part in a discussion and THEN closing the topic at a moment that suits you.. I regard that as misuse of the close permission.
    – Goodies
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 8:21
  • 1
    Does revenge voting actually happen? I've been around a long time and voted to close quite a few times, can't say I've ever noticed it.
    – Steve Bennett
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 10:13
  • 1
    You get -2 for being downvoted, and it also costs the downvoter 1. You get +10 for being upvoted. It's just not a problem for reputation scores in the long run. If you suspect someone is serially downvoting you, there are existing meta questions addressing that. I can't recall ever noticing it happen to me. Leaving abusive comments is much easier for the typical angry user.
    – Karl Knechtel
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 10:19
  • 1
    I've never really experienced any kind of retaliation for being part of a list of close voters. The fact that there are more than one already makes it harder for someone to be specifically angry at you I guess, they'll instead turn their anger globally to the site. Downvotes combined with comments, that's the troublemaker.
    – Gimby
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 14:54
  • Since I've hit 3k I've accumulated almost 300 close votes. So far, no one has taken their "revenge" on me. I think most people don't even know of the timeline feature or simply don't care.
    – QBrute
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 15:41
  • 3
    uh No. I want my name to be shown when I cast a close vote.
    – Sagar V
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 16:27
  • What am I missing? I'm at 60k and not only do I not see close voters' names in the timeline, I don't see in the timeline any evidence for close votes at all. I only see it after the question is already closed (and in that case, the names of the voters are shown on the "main" question page anyway, not only on the timeline)
    – DeepSpace
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 17:05
  • 2
    Just as an addition regarding "some of them might want blood-soaked revenge by hitting on the downward arrow with enormous fury.": as the answers have noted, downvotes are not a problem. It'll happen to you at some point, and it'll be auto-fixed. What is a problem is if you have any personal information, like an email, on your profile. I used to have my email on my profile in case anyone wanted to contact me for off-topic questions. The only replies I ever got though were people calling me all sorts of nasty things because I had closed a question of theirs. Don't post contact information.
    – Carcigenicate
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 17:18
  • The questions you asked in your question all those years ago are valid. It is very unfortunate to see that people in charge have done nothing since yet. I've recently come accross this myself, and I brought this to community's attention in a similar question/feature request that was already asked before. Since then, that question gained a lot of attention and upvotes from people feeling exactly the same. That notice in the banner is misleading, since anyone can easily view the list of close voters in the timeline or edit history
    – Chris
    Commented Jul 29 at 17:15

6 Answers 6

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49

First of all, congratulations on earning 3k! I'm very glad that you're motivated to cast close/reopen votes, we can always do with more curators on Stack Overflow.

I understand that it can be scary to feel that you might be targeted because of your curation. I won't deny that your name being on the close banner increases the chance that you will face some downvotes on your own content, but this is not as much of a problem as you might think.

To start, if a disgruntled user seeks "blood-soaked revenge by hitting on the downward arrow with enormous fury" as you put it, there is a script that runs every day that will reverse those votes, and you'll get the lost reputation back. If the votes don't get reverted for some reason, flag one of the downvoted posts for moderator attention and they can escalate it to the Community Managers, who can confirm if there was targeted voting and invalidate any outstanding downvotes.

Also, from my own experience, as well as discussing this with other curators, it's not just that you closed the post that causes revenge downvoting. Usually, it's the result of a comment thread that goes poorly, where you try to explain to a user why you voted to close their post and/or suggested how they should improve the post to get it reopened. If you want to reduce the chances that you'll be revenge downvoted, you could avoid commenting on the post at all. Ideally, you should comment on the post if you think you can help the user, but then disengage at the earliest sign of it going poorly. This is, of course, a fairly hard determination to make, and whether you will be able to do this well or not is something you'll have to find out for yourself.

Finally, hiding it from the banner serves to prevent downvoting a lot. Most users don't even know that the information about which users voted to close is available on the timeline.

I also think transparency is a good thing; I want that information to be available somehow, and the timeline itself should contain it. It might seem that there aren't any actionable things a user could do with that information, but users can raise custom flags based on that information. They can also ping a close voter if that user was the only one who participated in the closure (which would make them a gold tag badge holder, or a moderator). These are both actions that users at all privilege levels should be able to take.

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    The obscurity and transparency mentioned in the last two paragraphs here is, essentially, why we made the decision to hide it in the banner but not the timeline. While I'm sympathetic to closers, I don't currently think we need to go any further. I'd hate for close voters to stop commenting to help the asker improve the question as a way to avoid outing themselves because I do believe that comments can be really helpful - much more helpful than the guidance in the close banners. So I hope that's only an extreme last resort.
    – Catija Staff
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 1:13
  • 10
    Vote reversal isn't as simple as you describe it. I have tons of revenge votes that were never reversed. It's just part of the life on Stack Overflow: you do good deeds and you get revenge downvotes for it. It's mostly because of comments, but my name appears everywhere and who knows what goes through these people's mind.
    – Dharman Mod
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 10:48
  • Lately, being able to see who close voted has been abused to target and berate individual users here on meta simply for disagreeing with what they deem a reasonable closure, rather than simply using their votes.
    – Kevin B
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 15:10
  • 1
    @KevinB You haven't said this explicitly, but it seems you're implying that this is an argument in favor of hiding the close voters information from users. I have to disagree with that; publicly calling out close voters on meta may, or may not, be a bad thing, but it's far from a sufficient argument for hiding that information. In fact, hiding that information would give impunity to users who would like to abuse their close vote privileges, as there would be no way for users to see that pattern. Again, whether users should call them out on Meta as opposed to raising flags is a separate issue.
    – cigien
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 15:37
  • It was simply a statement of fact. I personally can't recall the last time we've had a case of fraud or mal-practice outed due to being able to see who cast what close vote.
    – Kevin B
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 15:38
  • 1
    @KevinB 1) Ok, I just assumed that there was some purpose to your statement of fact, but that's fine. 2) I don't see how you would recall something like that. If and when action is taken against users for fraud, etc, it's not like mods are going to discuss those actions publicly. For all we know, there have been many cases of fraud being discovered due to the info in the timeline. Your phrasing with "outed" again suggests that your objection is to users being called out on Meta, as opposed to the info being available. Perhaps you should make another Meta about that aspect specifically.
    – cigien
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 15:51
  • 1
    I've tried to ping a close voter. It doesn't work; @ won't lock onto the user's name.
    – Joshua
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 17:58
  • 3
    @Joshua It only works for times where only one person acts to close the post and it doesn't autocomplete but it does still work. This is also how editor pings work - you can ping anyone who's edited a post but their username doesn't autocomplete. Only comments have that feature.
    – Catija Staff
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 19:16
15

This really shouldn't be a thing that stops you from good curation of the site. Downvotes will come with or without it. Voting is anonymous as we all know and trying to guess who down-voted us simply isn't worth it.

There are some systems in place to prevent extreme floods of revenge votes. Also, assuming most closed questions are from new users, they still can't downvote (as you said yourself).

But, anyway, to quote Adrian Mole from chat:

Look at it this way: If you don't get the odd spate of revenge downvotes, then you aren't doing your curation properly.

So go ahead and close close-worthy questions with confidence and be proud of your revenge down-votes should they come, they mean you're doing your job! xD

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    We are here because we want to feel that our profile is good, and that we are useful. The revenge downs take away exactly this feeling. With the close votes, we can also exterminate the trash, which is a unique feature of most internet sites. I think, some of the reason of the robo-close voters is the revenge downs what they got for their (originally fair) closures.
    – peterh
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 12:31
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My personal opinion is that education cannot happen without disclosure and transparency - period! It is only through the full disclosure of information that anyone can learn at all. So even though there is a possibility that someone might take your decision to heart and become emotionally irrational over it ... that then could then become an opportunity for someone to learn and to understand that requiring higher standards from our community is by no means a bad thing. It is the only way to ensure that we advance together and become better at what we do. And the process of improving only happens through making mistakes and people need to understand that making a mistake is a good thing because it means they are engaged in the process and they are making a genuine effort. Continuing to do that can only yield success on some level.

As a member of the community who is in a position to help people understand that process and to maybe help them understand that such decisions can only help them become better, you want your name out there and you want to take ownership of your decisions and you want to be able to justify them but hopefully in a manner that only helps the OP become better at what they are doing in this community.

In my opinion, it's far better to be of service, than to worry about ones reputation ... because ultimately, being in service to others ... can only reflect truthfully on your overall reputation in the long run.

:-)

11

Quoting a relevant MSE answer (note that while the answer itself was originally posted by a regular MSE user, the paragraph I quoted was added later by a staff member):

We discussed changing the post notice language for users who do have permissions but decided to leave it as-is, so that still indicates that both the post owner and those with close/reopen vote privileges can see the names. Because post owners are still able to see who voted to close/reopen their question by going into the post history, it would be inaccurate to say that they do not have access to that information. It's merely harder to reach (and lower rep users are much less likely to find it).

The hiding is not meant to be watertight (for that, it would likely be necessary to hide the list of names from everyone), but merely to make it harder to reach. I tend to agree this is the right balance. In particular, if a question's timeline ever becomes useful (for instance, if it is relevant to a dispute that reaches Meta), it is better if everyone, including the question author, sees it in the same way.

Also relevant: this MSE answer by Shog. While it predates the change to the closure notice that also hid the names from the question author, it casts a different light on the broader point of the hiding. It is especially worth noting that making retaliation less likely was never the only motivation for such changes.

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The problem exists, but I think this is not the correct solution. That would make the close voters less accountable, thus it would encourage the VTC misuses. Not only the terrible amount of crap is a problem of the SO, but the many unfair closures are also a big problem.

What could be done: The serial vote reversal script should intervene, if it detects a habit of downvoting the close-voters of the posts of the downvoter. The exact details would be kept secret by the company (to prevent gaming of the system), but if someone downvotes too much the posts of people who voted his/her questions for closure, then these votes would be deleted. In more serious cases, the mods could also be informed.

Thus, it would be an extension of the vote reversal script.

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  • Interesting idea, but it is extremely difficult to identify which votes are revenge votes and which ones are not unless they happen quickly in large numbers. The system can reverse only the obvious votes automatically.
    – Dharman Mod
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 12:22
  • @Dharman Nothing can be said sure, what the downer wanted, but there is a point where the voting pattern becomes enough clear for the reversion. For example, if I vote 10 posts of the same user down, that will be corrected next day. Although is it quite possible (but low probability) that I did not target the user, only somehow I found his many bad posts at once. So, there is an undisclosed rule in the vote reversal script, and the strong "urge" from the company to not target users, vote only for content.
    – peterh
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 12:39
  • @Dharman I think if I would now get the list of 40 users who once voted to close my posts, and then I would give a down to their randomly selected, 0-scored questions, that would be probably undetected by the serial down reversal. Also this 40 users had no idea, why did they get the down and from whom. But what I think, such a voting pattern would be the shool example of the misuse.
    – peterh
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 12:42
  • 1
    You would know that it is misuse, but no one else would. This could be a random coincidence. One downvote is not a pattern
    – Dharman Mod
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 12:43
  • @Dharman 40 downs, all to my previous close-voters, I think it would be a pattern, but it is not recognized. Only targeted serial downs are handled by the midnight reversal.
    – peterh
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 13:41
  • 1
    Answer seems to be conflating timeline view and system monitoring serial votes. Don't see how they are connected
    – charlietfl
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 19:13
  • @charlietfl These are not connected. The answer explains, why and how should they get connected.
    – peterh
    Commented Apr 9, 2021 at 8:24
5

It simply is not a problem. AFIK I've only experienced one single revenge voter, and that got caught and reversed. And that time I explained quite thoroughly why I thought a particular answer was bad and that I will downvote it.

And you will also pretty quickly notice that 99% of the close votes you cast will be on questions from user with 1 rep.

3
  • You have no way to know, why did you get a down and from whom. I once talked with a high-rep user, with a lot of close reviews. He had also some questions. All of his questions had negative score, obviously unfairly. He said, these are revenge downs for his close votes. Recently also I made a "rampage": I found particularly disgusting and highly viewed questions with the SEDE, and I did everything, what I could, to help the OP to understand that quality is very important. The revenge was not very bad, but visible (maybe 5-10 revenge downs for maybe an 1000 closures or edit+down combos).
    – peterh
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 12:22
  • 1
    On average, we all end up with positive net scores. While it can be irksome that some of your answers end up with negative scores for no good reason, in the end it all works out and most of the obvious revenge downvoting gets reversed, and most of the obviously unwarranted negative votes get compensated with correcting upvotes. In my almost 10 years here, I think I have observed less than 20 obvious downvoting sprees. (I think I first got more active in site curation in 2015 but I gave up on establishing a precise date.)
    – tripleee
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 13:20
  • 1
    @peterh In this particular case, me and the downvoter had a very long discussion, and very soon after (minutes) I had declared that I will DV, I had 4 downvotes on four different old answers. I flagged one of the downvoted answers and explained the situation and it got reversed. Sure, there is a small possibility that it was someone else, but I would be able to bet a very large amount of money that it wasn't.
    – klutt
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 13:28

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