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I am curious what does the entry "user was removed" mean in your reputation summary for the day? Here is what I see:

See the second line down. Does that mean a whole user account that voted +1 on one of my answers was deleted? Nothing on that line is clickable though, so how can one find out what really happened. If someone got bumped off the site, nosy people like me want to know the jucy details of what they did.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I don't see the point: you can't see whom you got upvoted by either. Those lines aren't clickable either. \$\endgroup\$
    – stevenvh
    Commented Apr 16, 2012 at 11:12
  • \$\begingroup\$ Federico think it's a spammer's account. Can users delete their own account? \$\endgroup\$
    – stevenvh
    Commented Apr 16, 2012 at 11:17
  • \$\begingroup\$ Maybe the entire post was deleted, so it's impossible to reach to check what happened \$\endgroup\$
    – clabacchio
    Commented Apr 16, 2012 at 12:28
  • \$\begingroup\$ @clabacchio - No, the post was Olin's, and only Olin or a mod can remove that. Besides, the message clearly says user removed, not answer. \$\endgroup\$
    – stevenvh
    Commented Apr 16, 2012 at 13:00
  • \$\begingroup\$ @stevenvh sorry, as "post" I was intending the question, and a deleted question may remove the answers, too...and this may be a consequence of the deletion of the user. But I'm just speculating \$\endgroup\$
    – clabacchio
    Commented Apr 16, 2012 at 13:06
  • \$\begingroup\$ @clabacchio - I got my downvote point back a few times when the post in question, like a spam answer was deleted. In that case the reputation summary shows "deleted" and a link to the answer. \$\endgroup\$
    – stevenvh
    Commented Apr 16, 2012 at 13:08
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ @Stevenvh: I don't remember deleting one of my answers recently, but if I did I would expect it to say removed by user, not user was removed. The latter implies the user himself went away, not the answer or the question. \$\endgroup\$
    – Olin Lathrop
    Commented Apr 16, 2012 at 13:10
  • \$\begingroup\$ @stevenvh but is there a case in which deleting a user may result in deletion of his questions? \$\endgroup\$
    – clabacchio
    Commented Apr 16, 2012 at 13:10
  • \$\begingroup\$ @clabacchio - I've seen questions with a user name attached which wasn't clickable, so I presume that their account was removed, while the question was still there. You'll have to ask a mod about specifics. \$\endgroup\$
    – stevenvh
    Commented Apr 16, 2012 at 13:31
  • \$\begingroup\$ @OlinLathrop - Could you hover over the '1 hour ago' text next to 'removed' and post the date and time? (I don't have access to your rep page). This is, in fact, caused by deleting a user (see meta.stackexchange.com/a/125993), but I don't know of any users which were deleted recently and I'm trying to track this down. \$\endgroup\$
    – Kevin Vermeer Mod
    Commented Apr 16, 2012 at 14:21
  • \$\begingroup\$ @OlinLathrop - Ignore that, tracked down thanks to Shog9. \$\endgroup\$
    – Kevin Vermeer Mod
    Commented Apr 16, 2012 at 14:41
  • \$\begingroup\$ I wanted to ask about this, it happened to me too today. It seems all the top users shared in it. Russell lost 60 in rep. Could it be that it was a new user who was a compulsive serial upvoter? \$\endgroup\$
    – stevenvh
    Commented May 24, 2012 at 13:14
  • \$\begingroup\$ @steven: It happened to me today again too. Right now I'm actually negative for the day. If this user's rep was well spread around, it would indicate it wasn't a fan club or someone gaming the system. Perhaps there was some other reason the admins thought the rep he dispensed was illegitimate. Oh well, life goes on. \$\endgroup\$
    – Olin Lathrop
    Commented May 24, 2012 at 18:15

2 Answers 2

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If a user account is deleted, that users' up and down votes are removed per https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/126471. This has always been the case, but it's only recently been reported as 'user was removed'.

This can occur when, as suggested by Federico, a spam user is destroyed.

It's also possible for users to request self-deletion by flagging one of their posts or emailing the team. That's what happened here. The SE team honored the deletion request, the user was deleted, and the user's votes were removed.

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I guess it's a new user who only created an account to post spam. Apparently he also simulates normal user behavior by upvoting other answers. This user may have upvoted an answer from you, and also one from me. Both upvotes are gone when a mod deletes the spammer's user account.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Spammers user accounts aren't deleted, at least not systematically. This answer was reported as spam, and also deleted but the poster's account still exists. (You'll need to have 10,000 reputation to see deleted answers.) \$\endgroup\$
    – stevenvh
    Commented Apr 16, 2012 at 11:10
  • \$\begingroup\$ I also doubt spammers will take the trouble to vote for other answers. \$\endgroup\$
    – stevenvh
    Commented Apr 16, 2012 at 11:16
  • \$\begingroup\$ @stevenvh spammer accounts are destroyed when they're found (and judged to be solely spam). They're destroyed manually though, sometimes not-entirely-spam users post things that are deleted as spam \$\endgroup\$
    – Zelda
    Commented Apr 16, 2012 at 14:33

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