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Does anybody know (a moderator?) who is the user that has been removed which yesterday night caused to many of us a great amount of lost reputation?

I don't think he is Harish Kumar, who had a very high reputation, because the rules say:

This removal occurs whenever a user is deleted, unless that user had a very high reputation score.

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  • Harish Kumar deleted his account about half a year ago...
    – user31729
    Feb 4, 2017 at 10:02
  • 1
    @ChristianHupfer I know, but I didn't know how much time these things take to happen...
    – karlkoeller
    Feb 4, 2017 at 10:08
  • Apparently within the time span of one day. His high rep of about 220k (if I remember the figures correctly) prevented that the reversal was done, so it was only noticed that his questions and answers were attached to his id only and not his name.
    – user31729
    Feb 4, 2017 at 10:11
  • @ChristianHupfer Yes, now that Papiro has gone (from here...) I realised.
    – karlkoeller
    Feb 4, 2017 at 10:14
  • 6
    I assembled a count of users and a range of their rep point losses that were affected by the removal action. 3 users lost more than 5K points in one fell swoop; 2 users lost between 3K and 4K; 6 users lost between 2K and 3K; 18 users lost between 1K and 2K; and 26 users lost between 500 and 999 points. These "top 49" users lost a combined 69968 [!!] points. Many others lost up to 500 points; e.g., just in the 400-499 point range, 16 users lost a combined 7172 points...
    – Mico
    Feb 4, 2017 at 20:58
  • 2
    thanks @mico for your patience!
    – karlkoeller
    Feb 5, 2017 at 4:40

2 Answers 2

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This was openly discussed in the chat room today...

The user was Papiro (User 13907). It was initiated by him and subsequently actioned. Personal motivations were cited. You can follow further discussion in the recent chat history, starting here.

It was not Harish Kumar (User 11232). A large amount of reputation was removed due to voter fraud. At that time it was found that his reputation may have been boosted through sock-puppets. This was around early September 2016.

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  • Thanks for the info, Werner. I've read the comments you've linked in the chat and I'm very sorry for how Papiro was feeling, I understand him. I, too, was feeling addicted time ago and I decided to enter TeX.SX only when I have nothing better to do :-)
    – karlkoeller
    Feb 2, 2017 at 12:35
  • 8
    Very happy to have lost some rep and to know that this will make Papiro feel better!
    – karlkoeller
    Feb 2, 2017 at 12:36
  • BTW, I've had a private correspondence with Harish Kumar and one of the reasons that convinced him to leave TeX.SX is the same as Papiro...
    – karlkoeller
    Feb 2, 2017 at 12:38
  • 9
    (a) Reduce reputation of everybody seem very reasonable if votes come from a fraudulent user account, but I doubt if this is convenient coming from a legal old user that left voluntarily the site, except if that is what he want. (b) What is a "very high reputation"? What mean this when top users (for years) on this site do not fall into that category? 1000 K? This should be clarified in the user privileges.
    – Fran
    Feb 2, 2017 at 12:39
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    @Fran I agree with you, but in this moment I feel better knowing that Papiro is feeling better, too...
    – karlkoeller
    Feb 2, 2017 at 12:41
  • 2
    @karlkoeller This is most important that any score, of course! But Papiro is already in ways to solve it. The debatable about is only if this site is a danger of addition/procastination for the rest, but I feel that it's better not to get into this mess ...
    – Fran
    Feb 2, 2017 at 14:15
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    I wonder why the condition "This removal [of rep points] occurs whenever a user is deleted, unless that user had a very high reputation score" wasn't applied here. Clearly, papiro's reputation score exceeded that of 95% to 99% (and maybe even more!) of all users of TeX.SE.
    – Mico
    Feb 2, 2017 at 18:52
  • @Mico: I think that reference is absolute, and not relative to the site. I speculate that this perhaps references a "trusted user" or one with 20K+ reputation.
    – Werner Mod
    Feb 2, 2017 at 18:58
  • @mico there was confirmation why that was not applied quoted in chat (see the starred messages there)
    – David Carlisle
    Feb 2, 2017 at 22:31
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    @Mico chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/35160279#35160279 covers it
    – Joseph Wright Mod
    Feb 3, 2017 at 9:31
  • @JosephWright - Thanks so much for this link.
    – Mico
    Feb 3, 2017 at 9:56
  • 1
    It doesn't matter much to me, but the decision to remove rep points gained by up-votes from a user who was in good standing is detrimental to this site.
    – JPi
    Feb 5, 2017 at 2:30
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This is more of a comment and proposition than an answer. Because it is too long to fit in a comment I wrote it up as an answer.

In my opinion the policy of removing an SE member is very wrong. This does not just punish the member that is removed, but all members, including those who wrote answers to questions of the removed person and the rest of the community as well.

For example, with the recent removal of one of the TeX.SE community participants, about one hundred of my answers were deleted (just a rough estimate, my reputation loss was about 2800), and from some more valuable members even more. I'm convinced that this loss cannot be neglected and that it noticeably degrades the wealth of answers.

As a possible solution I propose that, in similar situations, the non duplicated and community related questions with all answers be preserved and the removed questioner designated as questioner has been removed from the list or something similar.

I kindly ask all members of weigh in here and try to convince the SE management/decision makers to change this policy. This would be a benefit to existing and future SE users.

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  • 8
    As far as I can tell, all posts (questions and answers) still remain; you mention "about one hundred of my answers were deleted", but I assume you mean "about one hundred of my answers were affected". It's just the votes that have been negated.
    – Werner Mod
    Feb 3, 2017 at 1:31
  • I reworded your post. Hopefully it's in still in the correct tone.
    – Werner Mod
    Feb 3, 2017 at 4:07
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    Zarko, you lost reputation because they subtracted to your points all his upvotes, but you answers still remain!
    – CarLaTeX
    Feb 3, 2017 at 4:27
  • 2
    As others have noted, it's only votes and accepts that 'vanish' if a user is deleted. Even then, votes don't necessarily get invalidated when the user removed as a rep beyond a certain threshold. In this particular case, the SE staff decided to invalidate the votes as there were other issues with the account concerned. For most answers of reasonable generality and quality there will be other upvotes which mean that they are still net positive score. Most of the users impacted by the loss already are +10k in rep so it also does not affect their ability to interact with the site. ...
    – Joseph Wright Mod
    Feb 3, 2017 at 9:21
  • ... As such, I suspect the staff will take the view that there is no further action required.
    – Joseph Wright Mod
    Feb 3, 2017 at 9:22
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    @Werner, thank you very much for rewording my post! Now is much better.
    – Zarko
    Feb 3, 2017 at 9:53
  • 3
    User deletion is implemented for destroying spammers, sockpuppets and the like -- in such cases, vote reversals make sense. The implementation is a poor fit for voluntary account deletion.
    – Raphael
    Feb 3, 2017 at 10:11
  • 1
    @CarLaTeX, it seems that I misunderstand what was actually happen. Now I see, that removed user vote for about my 280 answers, 580 from Bernard (as I read in chat room) etc, and those answers are still on the site, but with less votes (even with negative?). This some how make sense, but on the another hand insinuate, that users affected with this has some deal with him. What of course is not true.
    – Zarko
    Feb 3, 2017 at 10:18
  • 1
    @Zarko I agree with you that, in this case, the upvotes shouldn't have been deleted, it was not a fraud!
    – CarLaTeX
    Feb 3, 2017 at 10:20
  • 4
    @CarLaTeX Of course not, but anyone getting targetted upvotes has the same: you get votes, they then vanish again, it's not your fault. That's why the key is to ask everyone to vote based on the answers not the person posting them: the best solution is not to vote inappropriately to start with.
    – Joseph Wright Mod
    Feb 3, 2017 at 15:04
  • 1
    @JosephWright Obviously, I don't know the "other issues with the account concerned" but, since almost everybody's reputation was affected, I don't think Papiro voted the person and not the answer...
    – CarLaTeX
    Feb 3, 2017 at 15:40
  • 1
    @CarLaTeX Yes, sure: as has been noted earlier, there were questions about some of the voting and this informs how the staff handle deletions.
    – Joseph Wright Mod
    Feb 3, 2017 at 16:50
  • 1
    Hmmm what if I delete myself from TeX.sx? :)
    – Paulo Cereda
    Feb 3, 2017 at 16:55
  • 1
    @PauloCereda non ci provare neanche!
    – CarLaTeX
    Feb 3, 2017 at 16:56
  • 1
    @PauloCereda, do not even try! This will cause chaos here ...
    – Zarko
    Feb 3, 2017 at 18:01

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