To be honest, I don't care about it. Points are not the point, at least to me. I can say that I don't like getting a downrate without a comment, so I always appreciate someone taking notice and giving me a point or two. I have never gotten 'scores' of points this way, but if someone does, oh well. ;)

If the member did not do anything really very bad, than I think it is alright to try to help him get back on his feet. I know it hurts when you are downrated and you did not intend to be offensive or disrespectful, but inadvertently were.

I'm sorry - I don't understand your question. I think my confusion starts here >> What do you mean by "...someone who has been spammed?" Spammers spam Answerbag with links to commercial websites; they don't spam people. Trolls and spammers are two different kinds of people. Can you re-state your question? Oh, wait. OK, you mean how fair is it for people to uprate someone who's been trolled? I think it's neither fair or unfair - it's a show of support for someone who's been treated unfairly, more or less. Gosh, they're just points. There's no prize at the end of the day for whoever's got the most. I enjoy giving points to anyone who's been trolled. It's fun and makes the trollee feel a little better. Why not relax about what's happening with everyone else's points and stick to asking and answering questions and trying to make a few friends? Enjoy yourself. AB is a lot more fun that way. Whenever people focus on points, they're missing the point.

I just can't bring myself to care about it enough

I see your point and no I do not see it as being fair when in reality they never lost the first point. I do however understand that when someone is targeted they feel a bit wounded and they speak out when someone treated them badly. many here wish they could make things better for them and they do the only thing they can which is give them points which in all honesty means nothing really but is a way to say it is alright nothing to get upset about and has a way of seeing the support from those members who wish to see others get along. The whole point in this site is not so much to gain points but to feel like you made a difference in someones life. if throwing a few points toward them to cheer them up is the results is that really such a bad thing?

I knew when I posted my opinion on this subject that there would be a response mostly like the ones received. Not that anyone shouldn't voice what they think, anymore than it shouldn't be suggested that I should be learn to "relax and not worry so much about other's points." When a person gets downrated by a troll, it only means there's some jerk running around loose on AB trying to cause havoc. He/she ISN'T actually taking points away from you. So why should you get points given "back" to you for some you never lost? How fair do you think it is to other Baggers who weren't "fortunate" enough to be "trolled" and have points added to their scores by their friends? ABers who are vocal will either (1) express their dislike of the practice, or say that (2) there is nothing wrong with it, or that they (3) don't care about points. But those who will NOT express their true feelings about it for fear of getting put down for their resentment of those kinds of actions, are getting shafted. The only point being missed here (no pun intended) is the matter of unfairness to other Users by those who "think its fun and makes the Trollee feel a little better" and refuse to see how it may makes others feel as well. You (the generic 'you'; not anyone in particular) fail to recognize another side of this, which takes us back to the original question: HOW FAIR IS IT? Is it fair? It is not pleasant for me to set myself up to be ill thought of, nor to be told time and again that my opinion on this particular subject SHOULD NOT BE EXPRESSED, or that my point of view is invalid. But what some of you fail to see is that IT *DOES* matter, to some even more than to myself. It's just not 'wise' to say anything. We sit here, doing our part, while others are having "fun, because 'points don't matter'." But what you haven't recognized is that If points did not matter SOMEHOW, we would not be having this "conversation." So please consider for a moment how (again, the generic 'you') your behaviors make others feel. You behave as if other USERS feelings, opinion, and thoughts don't matter when you say "points don't matter'. To tell me that, in essence, is the same as saying 'mind your own business' and 'shut up about it'. That would be just as disturbing, but I understand that you merely don't want your fun ruined over such a minor matter as points (again, no pun intended). Please forgive me if I am not adhering to the desired code here. This is a problem, and AB Staff should be addressing this imbalance in some way when making future plans for Answerbag.

Wait -- so users don't actually lose points when they are downrated?

Why would anyone care about someone else's points or how they got them? It's not like these points are costing us anything. AB doesn't impose a fee on excess point distribution. I don't get it.

They are just points...You don't win anything for getting them, and you don't lose anything for being down-rated. I don't understand what the big deal is. Nobody likes being trolled..Most of us know how it feels to be trolled, and either we offer up points because we are sympathizing with the trollee, or because it was a legitimately good question or answer. Also, I'd like to challenge your assessment of "Dozens of Baggers uprate someone who has been spammed". Once a question has been brought up out of the negative, you can't tell that it was DR'd to begin with unless you go to that person's profile, click on thier feedback button, and check to see if that question/answer had been DR'd. Thats an awful lot of work involved....of course there is the obvious exception, when the fact the question/answer was DR'd is brought up in a comment thread.. In the grand scheme of things, though, points aren't really that big of a deal...

1) I assume that you are talking about users having got downratings on their answers and questions, because "spamming" is the posting of "unsolicited or undesired electronic messages" (this goes more in the direction of advertisements). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam 2) Downratings don't affect a user total amount of points. However, it affects their "+ %" percentage on questions or answers. This means that when you have a look at those percentage, you must be aware that bad percentages could be either the result of bad answers or questions ("justified" downratings) OR of abusive downratings. Some people look at those percentages to evaluate the behavior of a user that they don't know. In this sense, the "compensating" upratings are compensating the values of those percentages. 3) Another issue is that Answerbag is actually not user centered, but rather question centered (and also answer centered). The ratings of a question are usually not so important, as long as a valid question does not get overall negative ratings. As for the answer ratings, it would make sense that the best answer come at the top of the answer list when the answers are ordered by ratings (default setting). So a good answer which has been downrated should be pushed back where it will be found more easily. 4) If you are focused on the total amount of points received by a particular user, it seems somewhat unfair that someone gets much more points on a question or answer because they have also been downrated. But as I just tried to demonstrate, other things have to be considered, and many downratings also never get corrected.