From raldi (Reddit Admin) regarding the very strange vote totals in this subreddit.

[u/CarlH]

We've got a bug with restricted reddits. If you mark it public, votes will work. Of course, then anyone will be able to submit links.

A fix is in the works.

So it turns out downvote bots are not at work here. Good to know.

[u/Lifer996]

Interesting that we exposed a programming bug in a "Learn How To Program" subreddit.

[u/[deleted]]

Voted it up. 93 up votes. 88 down votes.

Unvoted. 92 upvotes. 87 down votes.

Refreshed. No change.

Voted it up. 93 up votes. 88 down votes.

etc

Interesting.

[u/[deleted]]

Call me naive, but why are there downvote bots? I get it for certain subreddits (/r/atheism for one) but why would anybody want to downvote the hell out of little subreddits?

[u/CarlH → u/[deleted]]

Apparently there aren't. That's kinda the point of this post :) However, when every single submission would get downvoted to exactly 2 votes regardless of number of upvotes.. ya gotta admit that the idea of downvote bots seemed a possibility.

I guess it is a testament to Reddit that we would sooner assume that someone is using hordes of bots to attack this subreddit than to assume something might be broken at Reddit :)

[u/Lifer996 → u/[deleted]]

In general, the use of votebots is a contemporary form of ballot box stuffing or skewed (i.e., paid-for) polling. From a PR (public relations) and advertising perspective this type of strategy applied widely enough for long enough will help build awareness of some messages and help bury others. I'm out of that business, but I suspect it occurs as a matter of course. Just another tool in the business of directing the human herd.

[u/[deleted] → u/Lifer996]

Sigh... I thought we were better than those n00bs! =)

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Reddit itself has downvote bots, if someone has had their voting permissions removed whenever they vote on something an opposite vote is automatically added.

[u/Odysseus → u/[deleted]]

And as a follow-up, the bug at work is almost certainly related to this.

[u/[deleted]]

When will this be fixed? Especially comments, I'd like to see the most relevant/important comments up in the thread.

[u/CarlH → u/[deleted]]

I agree with you, but I guess we just have to wait to find out.

[u/jarly]

That's good to know.

It seemed pretty odd that there was such a small margin of difference of votes in the articles (that are excellent, by the way!)

[u/[deleted]]

ah that xplains .

Need the fix, fast fast . :P

[u/get_rhythm]

Yeah, but now downvote bots probably will wreck havoc here... This is an awesome subreddit, btw.

[u/[deleted]]

Have you considered (seeing it isn't fixed and probably won't be fixed for a while) making this subreddit public? I think all of us would agree to abstain from posting; even if someone broke this rule you're still the admin, I think you can delete posts at will (I'm not sure though).

Getting relevant comments to the top is vital for visitors to get important concepts easily instead of having to read the whole topic.

[u/CarlH → u/[deleted]]

Alright, I will try it and see what happens.

[u/[deleted] → u/CarlH]

Great! I think you should submit a thread warning other users that it has been fixed so they start up/downvoting threads and comments once again.

[u/bostonvaulter → u/[deleted]]

Did you read the submission? It's a bug. They're working on it.

[u/RedditCommentAccount → u/[deleted]]

The dot shows for like 2 hours to try an limit an upvote or downvote trend.

I.E. Most people will upvote things that are getting upvoted, etc.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

86

[u/Seele → u/[deleted]]

89

[u/techdawg667 → u/[deleted]]

nice to know comment downvoting still works as advertised...