Does the original poster know when I downvote their posts?

Question

Some of my answers got down voted just because I down voted an answer of some other user or an user suspects me to be probable down voter as I left a comment on his/her down voted post.

Usually my motive behind down voting an answers is to point out technically incorrect instructions in it - purely constructive. But in reply my answer had been down voted several times.

I know there are preventive measures against serial down voting. But what about a few abusive down voting. Should I accept them? A down vote for a good answer is very disappointing and frustrating rather than only few reputation loss.

I really need to think before down voting or leaving a comment in a post for constructive criticism in future.

A down voter is usually tracked by his reputation change. In profile the reputation change due to down voting is not shown. It will be more secure if reputation change due to down voting is not reflect immediately. It can be adjusted at the end of day or at some convenient time all together.

Answer 1

This is so very analogous to a real-life situation. You try to correct someone, with no real harmful intention, but then get some nasty feedback.

So what do you do?

Just write good answers/questions- that is the only way you can overcome this. A few downvotes will always be diluted in the upvotes. The number of people doing constructive work will always exceed the others, so you don't need to worry about the few- just relax. I know its hard to digest downvotes for writing some really good answers, its painfull, but you'll surely be complimented for the good ones by the good ones.

Answer 2

The system is self healing.

People who exhibit that behavior will get bored and crushed by downvotes... or some other infraction will strip them of their account.

Don't take a downvote so seriously.

Answer 3

I would say just try to let it go. Most humans are morally good creatures and so the negativity from a few should not outweigh the positivity received from the majority. The weighting of UV's to DV's even tries to instill this, hence the +10/-2 ratios.

NOTE: If people weren't generally good, then sites like SE would've died already from lack of participation.

As to your suggestion about accumulating the DV's to the end of the day. I would say this would actually be more of a detriment. Imagine getting a larger hit in rep vs. the smaller -2's. Though getting several of these can be equally as devastating, in your mind they're still only -2. If you were to get a -10 or more from them it would seem like that would be more damaging.

Remember that humans by our very design mentally assign an over weight to negative things when compared to positive things. In nature this is what would keep someone alive when they had a strong reaction to something that tasted bad or if a fellow person were to be injured or died as the results of doing something. These strong memories and our associations of "bad" with these memories is what leads to self preservation.

I would worry that receiving a large aggregated minus in rep due to accrued DV's would be a more powerful and damaging thing then the current -2's that we now receive for them.

Just my $0.02.