Yes, I think someone is trolling profiles and smearing excrement on them. This has happened to me as well. I think someone is revelling in the power to have an effect - since s/he is unable to come up with informative and well articulated answers, this is the only way to make a mark.

I think everyone on the leaderboard -- and many others -- get that pretty regularly. When trolls go mad, their bowels start to leak out.

I suspect the answer is yes. There is no point in doing investigation. You just have to come to peace with it like drive-by shootings and Bush in the Whitehouse.

i believe the answer is yes. i mean yea i know alot of people on this site are exactly *fond* of me and i except that and everything but when i answer an *opinion* question such as whats ur fav. sound i find that i am being at like a -9!!!! but i guess when people have the power to do this kind of thing theyy use it up! and take advantage of it!

Yes, I do find the negative ratings and I hope no one downrates users out of spite. I get those and I also get non-ratings on both questions and answers. Some of it could be my own doing by not having a profile.(some may think that means I can't be trusted.)

Yes I got several tonight, I think someone just goes through at random and downrates a whole catagory or two.

Hmm... I've got quite a story to tell about this. Yes, I have been hate-graded [that's what I call it when people rate you down out of spite] but in my case, I knew who was doing it. In my first days in Answerbag, I downrated somebody's answer, one single answer, and left a comment to explain why I downrated it. The next time I logged in, my status was down from A+ to C- [that was the rating system back then] And each and everyone of my answers, in one particular category, were downgraded. Worst of all, he left comments like "Nothing, just wanted to downgrade you", "Stupid", "wrong answer". I wish I could say that I never fought back, but I did. I downgraded his answers as well. I was so pissed off. I didn't come back to AB for a couple of years. Then out of the blue, I received an email who came from a guy I didn't know. he identified himself as the prankster I came across with in AB, and he was making peace with me. I was no longer interested, I told him. My ratings were already down, no way to pull them back up, and even if I put answers in AB with the intent of really helping people out, no one's gonna believe my answer because I have become, as far as the rating system is concerned, an "idiot who doesn't know what she's typing". I told him I'd forgive him if he could bring my old status back, back when I was still a credible source of answers in AB. But truth is, I never intended to peek into AB again. But curiosity got the better of me. I logged in, and I felt a pang of guilt when I saw what happened after that. He had re-graded [it was possible back then] my answers to make up, with little comments at the bottom to explain why my answer was actually good, or to back up my opinions. Although I never got back to A+, I was up from C- to B+. I don't know what happened to him. He doesn't seem to be logging into AB anymore. And somehow, that made me sad.

Yep. A while ago, I started getting all these -4 ratings. So it's not just newcomers, either.

People down rate me because they are offended by my position on fidelity within marriage. My wife and i believe in an open marriage, and have lived together for many years in an harmony filled household with two children, now grown, married and both professionals. I have expressed this opinion on all questions dealing with something called "cheating" and as a result there are cowardly down-rating artists who blast all my opinions without intelligently arguing for fidelity. Occasionally, someone makes a cogent arguement for fidelity and I give points--for their argument, not for the position. I am past caring for the points, I find answering and commenting interesting enough.

I think there are people who do that...or people who just downrate answers to questions that they "don't agree with."

Yes, but I don't pay too much attention to them. They seem to me to be rather unhappy people. I don't know if they can go back and track the info or not..whatever.

Ignore hate, its way past time to be moving beyond such an animal mindset. If you have haters you are on the right path. the negative ratings only effect how your ranked on this site right? its just a number. It does suck that people are so desperate to feel power in their lives that they take a break from surfing porn and fight shows to log on, sneak around ab and trash others ratings relentlessly, but there is a nice warm spot on the bottom of Aquarius' boot for them. hate will not last so leave haters to themselves if they found this question they would love it, that youve been so effected. f-em we have so much more important things to do.