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What to do about grave diggers who insist on Frankensteining old questions and downvoting answers on 6 month old topics.

Not a biggie but just annoying to see rep points go down. (I have a fragile ego.)

Should there be a time window for when you can up/downvote an answer? This just may be the largest improvement to the community if implemented correctly.

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    Just mentally offset the loss of 2 reputation on a seven weeks old post with the gain of 20 on an eight months old post on Sep 5th. You come out way ahead. Everyone does.
    – Daniel Beck Mod
    Sep 7, 2013 at 21:15
  • I agree with you. Now I digged out your question and upvoted that. But, how will I even go out my way to answer some one else's question. I can just roam around the site looking for answers and reply none of the questions. Now I'm playing safe ain't I? I think this how it has to be played. Some one had down voted and I lost reps. I'm trying to find out from where
    – Prasanna
    Aug 30, 2014 at 18:59

2 Answers 2

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Absolutely not.

We don't aim to become another site where it's pointless to scroll past the most recent questions, because anything else is just outdated garbage (and most of the older stuff was asked again more recently anyway).

We visibly value answering old questions (Revival, Necromancer) and editing old posts (Excavator, Archaeologist); exactly because we want to allow older questions and answers to continue being relevant.

This includes the ability to continue to vote up or down for these posts to reflect their continued relevance (or not). If an answer becomes obsolete, or it turns out it's wrong for some reason (at least if it doesn't say it!), doesn't it deserve to be downvoted as being not useful?

Reputation is only a side-effect from votes. The important bit is the score, assisting users in evaluating the correctness and relevance of posts. So we should never freeze it.

(We have a handful of locked questions, but so few it's not remotely relevant here. Plus, extraordinary circumstances.)

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What to do about grave diggers who insist on Frankensteining old questions and downvoting answers on 6 month old topics.

Nothing. They are using the site as intended. They're just "Gitting'R Done".

Not a biggie but just annoying to see rep points go down. (I have a fragile ego.)

Man up, then. No room for fragile egos around here. If you can't take the heat, don't play.

Should there be a time window for when you can up/downvote an answer? This just may be the largest improvement to the community if implemented correctly.

No, and I disagree. The site is working as designed, and people who downvote old questions and answers in good faith (they truly believe the question or answer is not useful) are actually benefiting the site.

If they are downvoting because they dislike the person who posted the question/answer, that's a different story, and is not acceptable community behavior.

(Author's note: This answer would be significantly longer, but the OP appears to dislike long answers and likes to say Git'R Done, so I'm attempting to write in a style that the OP will understand. Feel free to downvote if you think Daniel Beck's answer is better.)

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    +1 for the impeccable sense of sarcasm. Also, Brownie points for going so far as to read my previous questions/answers and custom tailor a response that fits my model of the world. This answer wears like a well fitted suit. I am grateful for each answer here (as well as the many downvotes) and I understand that SU can only benefit from posing questions about site functionality. I remain dutifully grateful to further bolster my/our understanding of the internal workings of the community.
    – Scandalist
    Sep 8, 2013 at 1:12

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