in reply to Error in the reputation breakdown field?

Frankly, the most likely explanation is that you are mistaken. We've certainly had bugs in things, but the way that reputation tracking is done, what you described is an extremely unlikely type of bug.

But you give no information to look into. What node(s) did you see this happen on? When did you see "(+0 -2)" and then when did you see "(+0 -1)"? With something specific like that I could check.

Taking a guess, I could see some confusion resulting from seeing a node go from "-1 (+0 -1)" to "0" then "1". That isn't what you described, but inaccurate descriptions are not unheard of. Anyway, that happens because "insignificant" numbers of downvotes are not shown if the node's reputation is not negative, as documented in Display of Node Reputation.

- tye        

  • Comment on Re: Error in the reputation breakdown field? (bugs)

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Re^2: Error in the reputation breakdown field? (bugs)
by ysth (Canon) on Nov 27, 2005 at 03:44 UTC
    When I run the vote recounter, I see an awful lot of nodes get corrected; I wouldn't be surprised to see something like the OP describes happen, unless you really think it impossible.

    Another thought: unreaping resets reputation/votescast to what they were when reaped.

[reply]
      I wouldn't be surprised to see something like the OP describes happen

      I don't think you thought about this carefully. Going from "(+0 -2)" to "(+0 -1)" would require votescast to be decremented. We never decrement it.

      What does happen sometimes is that updates get lost. If both parts of the update got lost, then the reputation display simply wouldn't include that vote. It would not go "backward".

      If only half of the update got lost (only votescast getting incremented or only reputation getting inc/decremented), then you'd see something like "(+0.5 -2.5)". People would remember seeing such a thing so I don't think that has ever happened (which makes sense, considering how the node cache works, such would be quite unlikely though perhaps not completely impossible).

      - tye        

[reply]
        I was thinking of three downvotes; one initiated by one server while two others happened on the other server. At this point the OP sees -2 (perhaps the OP was even one of the two downvotes); once the first server updates the node record it is "decremented" to -1.
[reply]
Re^2: Error in the reputation breakdown field? (bugs)
by Moron (Curate) on Nov 28, 2005 at 12:38 UTC
    It depends on whether shown and recorded are the same thing. If "no significant downvotes" means history of previously significant downvotes gets recorded in its canceled-out form then this would explain the behaviour in itself - but as for the suggestion I am misreporting this, I think Woody Allen would probably have put it something like this:

    "Just because you're hallucinating doesn't prove anybody else's world is real."

    -M

    Free your mind

[reply]

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