I had 308 reputation. However, upon logging in today I noticed only 298. I go to my user page, and click the reputation tag. I see -10 for "User was Removed". What is this? What does it mean? Is it my fault? If so, how can I reverse the damage?


When a user is removed, all their votes are deleted too. The points you lost were the points given to you earlier by votes by that user. Perhaps that user had upvoted 1 of your answers (1 * 10), or two questions you posted.

No, it is not your fault, and no, you cannot get those points back.

See What does "user was removed" mean and why did my reputation change because of it?

  • 1
    As explained here: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/126470/… – Bart Apr 25 '14 at 12:26
  • @Bart: was just about to paste that in. :-) – Martijn Pieters Apr 25 '14 at 12:26
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    And I was halfway done with an answer when you posted yours. Now we're even. ;) – Bart Apr 25 '14 at 12:27
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    Why do I use rep for that. It is not my fault – an earwig Apr 25 '14 at 12:27
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    @James_Parsons: no, it wasn't your fault. But if such user account deletions do not remove the points again, we'd have a lot more sock-puppet accounts fraudulently upvoting their own posts to gain points unfairly. – Martijn Pieters Apr 25 '14 at 12:28
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    @James_Parsons: you could also have gained points if the deleted user had instead downvoted your posts; I am sure you wouldn't protest such reversals as vehemently. :-) – Martijn Pieters Apr 25 '14 at 12:29
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    @James_Parsons - To be honest, you didn't really lose anything at all. You gained 10 points of reputation from them, then those were removed when the user was. Given that the user was most likely a fake account or otherwise used to work around site restrictions, you probably shouldn't have received the 10 points to begin with. It's as if they never existed. – Brad Larson Apr 25 '14 at 13:39
  • @James_Parsons So, bots are created that try to fake a reasonable voting strategy and also upvote their target. (If they only upvote their target, they are obviously bots). You where selected as an upvote for such a bot. The upvote wasn't real (by a person who found your content helpful), so when the bot was caught the upvote was reversed. This really undoes the +10, it does not really apply a -10 (which matters in the case of reputation caps). (this is a just-so story, and may not perfectly match what actually happend) – Yakk - Adam Nevraumont Sep 4 '14 at 15:00
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    I just feel I've been treated unfairly: I was just hit with a -100 due to user was removed, and this did remove 100 from my reputation. However more days than not I max out at 200 -- so I'd bet it's likely that said now-removed user just pushed me to the 200 max-out a bit earlier, some days, with many of their upvotes... and yet I'm being dinged anyway. I may be wrong -- rep on all relevant days may have been carefully recomputed -- but I'm given NO reason to believe that is the case; it really feels like ashes in my mouth. And here I was, just back to active... guess I may go again:-( – Alex Martelli Dec 22 '14 at 1:32
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    @Alex: all caps will have been recalculated. And this is what happens to all high-profile users once in a while, we all occasionally lose the votes from deleted users; I had another such event this morning. – Martijn Pieters Dec 22 '14 at 8:09
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    @AlexMartelli: note that all votes by the user are counted (10 * -10 points 'lost') even if those votes were capped at the time. This is done to minimise revealing when votes were cast. In any case, capped or not, the votes are removed as if never cast and days you were capped are recalculated as if the votes were never there to begin with. If those votes did count at the time and you received more votes beyond the cap, (some of) those now do count. – Martijn Pieters Dec 22 '14 at 9:34
  • @AlexMartelli: the reputation cap, then, is actually an advantage here. It gives you a little 'money in the bank', an insurance policy against User removed events. If anything, people without that reputation insurance are being treated unfairly; they don't get compensated for the removed votes from the capped votes bank like those who regularly hit the rep cap are. – Martijn Pieters Dec 22 '14 at 9:45
  • @BradLarson I don't know. I follow your argument that "the user was likely a fake account" but recently I've only been losing 10 or 20 points maximum from each day that a user was removed. If that's true, it is hard to imagine a person sock-puppeting for a single up vote. Perhaps they were sock-puppeting other accounts, and 10 points isn't going to really hurt me, it does dampen the enthusiasm. And keep in mind, there are innocuous reasons why users are removed, all removed users aren't gaming the system. – Edwin Buck Oct 28 '15 at 16:45
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    @BradLarson Again, I understand your logic. It just seems that if they were obvious sock puppet accounts from my point of view, I probably would have enjoyed more than one upvote from them. They key isn't that they are / are not sock puppet accounts, it's that the visibility that they are sock puppet accounts is often not the first thing a regular user would notice, or even something that a regular user ever sees. I mean, from my point of view, how obvious is it that a single -10 came from a sock puppet, a -1000 yes, a -10 not as easy to see. – Edwin Buck Oct 28 '15 at 18:25
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    @EdwinBuck: sock puppet accounts can and do vote on other posts in misguided attempts to hide their activities. If you really enjoyed more than a few votes from a sock puppet account us moderators would be having a more direct conversation with you about how using a sock puppet account to upvote your own content is not fair to other users of this site. In other words, if you stood to lose -1000 points from a deleted sock account you would be liable to be suspended for being the sock account operator. – Martijn Pieters Oct 28 '15 at 18:35

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