How To Be a Systematic Downvoter
Introduction
Now, you're wondering,
is this one of those for Dummies books, that doesn't tell me anything useful?
No, it isn't. You've decided to be a
systematic downvoter, because
someone pissed you off in the catbox or in a writeup. Here is a step by step guide in your new quest.
Find a target
Ideally, your target should be reasonably
prolific, otherwise, you won't be able to vote them down enough. If they are too
prolific, you may not have enough votes to bother them.
Don't fall into the trap
Most
DVers fall into a trap of
downvoting each and every writeup ever
noded by the target.
Don't do this. Doing this quickly reveals yourself to them, and now the target will mentally add "1" to all her nodes'
reputation,
and get to brag in the
catbox about her stalker.
Also, beware the clever noder! They may apply detective skills to tracking you down!
Find the target's best nodes
Learn her style. Understand what nodes get
chinged. Don't ever downvote these writeups, especially not within moments of appearance in
ENN. A writeup that drops to -1 and then to 4 is
evidence of your existence.
Now you can strike
When you see a new writeup by your target, go read it. Does it look like it'll get a lot of upvotes? If so, pass on it. Is it more of a
mediocre, filling in the
nodegel sort of writeup? DV it!
Your goal
Remember, your goal isn't to make the target lose XP. If the target is spending all of her votes, she'll expect to gain 70% of her
votes back as XP. You're only causing her 33% of your votes as a loss in XP - and she has less writeups for you to spend on than she has writeups to spend on. And each of her new writeups gets another free XP.
Your goal is to make her question, every time she hits the Create it as a: Person/Place/Idea/Thing, whether or not she'd be better off posting to Slashdot.