@Harry. I feel I need to address a certain other issue here, since I am also responsible towards such a trend.

The issues is that people misbehave with you. I have also taken part in it, I have to admit. It for instance happened in the following thread:

http://tea.mathoverflow.net/discussion/201/2/petition-to-reopen-a-question-of-mine/

in which I tried to avoid you. But my mindset was because of your rude behavior in the past. Let me recall one instance which comes to my mind:

http://tea.mathoverflow.net/discussion/141/how-often-does-the-system-recalculate-reputation/#Item_8

There you simply put me down with words like "Hush, Child". I have put in great efforts to be civil to you. In my memory I have never downvoted a post of yours. That is because, honestly, you appear to be a brilliant chap for your age. But sometimes you make it extremely hard to be nice to you.

Other instances of this sort of attidude is in the SBS thread on Grothendieck's letter, in which fpqc opines that Grothendieck should be beaten up. I do not know how one can go ahead with that sort of attitude. The only excuse one can imagine is that fpqc is perhaps too juvenile.

But please do stay around in MO and continue contributing math, ignoring the jibes.

@Harry. Maybe you are not provoked enough now to ragequit. However you were indeed provoked enough to ragecommunitywikiallyourquestions.

@Harry: I don't really understand the point of converting all your posts to wiki. If the goal is to get explanatory comments along with the downvotes, how does it help? If the goal is to get fewer downvotes, it seems like it hurts (people are more likely to downvote CW posts if they're out to downvote). If the goal is to protect against reputation loss, it probably hurts since you've gained rep on average on your posts. Unfortunately, now people who answer your questions won't earn reputation for it.

If you suspect you're being systematically targeted by another user in the future, please email me. If it turns out that somebody is systematically downvoting you, I'll take care of it. Side note: it looks like Scott understated the problem a bit, and actually fifteen (not just four) of your downvotes came from a single person in the last day, and those fifteen downvotes account for almost half of the downvotes that person has ever made.

To anybody downvoting Harry's posts:

If want to "teach him a lesson" because he's left nasty or abrasive comments/answers, stop for a moment to realize that indescriminantly downvoting his posts doesn't help the situation. You're treating him like he's not a person and encouraging him to treat others like they're not people. It's much more productive to leave a comment like "-1 I think your 'joke' is out of line" (@Harry: I trust you won't take such a comment as an invitation to defend your joke) or even "please edit this post for tone" (with or without the -1). If he edits the post to improve it, consider removing your downvote. If you don't want to leave a comment for fear of getting into an argument, please flag the post for moderator attention. If the offending remark is in a comment, flag the parent post and ask us to look at the comments. I assure you that the other moderators and I appreciate this kind of flagging.

@Mods. Is this sort of policing going to help? Did you ask why that person did what he or she did? To protect Harry's rights, one should not cover up the only way someone might have to avenge his or her hurt feelings. It is the democratic right of the silent to express themselves through voting and such.

I think in mathematics itself the best papers are not chosen not only through how loud their authors are, how much they promote it in conferences, etc., but also through the grapevine underneath, in which people express their admiration for so-and-so ideas in this or that paper. This sort of silent feedback is what keeps the engines of science running. Otherwise, if someone have some 10 blogs, that person will get the most attention. I think in student level this problem is already happening. A student with a blog gets much more attention than an equally good or better student whose temperament is not suited for blogging and such public relation stuff. One must consider the rights of the silent also.

Therefore I ask the mods to please consider the negative voter's democratic rights, just as I have argued for the need for Harry to be treated honorably.

The Gospel says, "He who lives by the sword dies by the sword". As I have pointed out, I myself felt bad from Harry's words at some point of time. Perhaps he is just reaping what he had sown? There must be some provocation for the person's actions. It cannot simply happen without a reason. If the person/persons has a valid reason, then over a period of time they will express their frustration through downvotes and the trend will die down. Meanwhile Harry can bite the bullet and wait until the storm gets over, continuing to contribute positively and mathematically to the community. Others have remarked that it is the non-math involvement that creates the problem.

Edit: If this is for instance done by the Troll who was troubling MO with junk questions, then I am with Harry for this one. But generally, one should at all restrict people's right to downvote.

@Anton. "Flagging for moderator attention" would work in MO. But what about meta?

@Generally. That said, I for one almost never had any problem with Harry in MO. As for meta, I note that for the last three weeks or so, Harry almost never did any particularly troublesome stuff, except for being intensely active. He listened to criticism most of the time when there was some objection. Maybe everyone should cut the dude some slack.

I have noted that in internet communities there is the tendency to seek out a scapegoat. If possible Harry should not be targeted like that considering his young age. His recent betterment should be noted and he should be given some space. I am also guilty of a prejudiced mindset against him, I try to clear some of my sin by confessing it.

@Harry. There is no need to speak every time some issue happens. You can let some of it go. In this world there are so many people and so many issues. Our brains can't address each of these issues. We have to make a choice. It is remarkable progress for your age that you have achieved, as evidenced by your project on Algebraic Spaces. It will be a better use of your time and energy if you devote them to your project, or other stuff in academics. What do you gain by cleaning the world of all its evils? That too in a place like mathoverflow? If you are really worried about the problems that plague the world, then taking it out in MO is not the way to address them. You have to go out and join a social reform movement, or reform for mathematics movement, or some political party, or something like that. If you keep expressing your voice on umpteen matters in MO which is meant for math, you will just keep on frustrating people.

@Everyone: If you agree with what I have tried to explain to Harry in the above para, then please join me and try to convince him!

@Harry. Done.

@SheldonCooper,

the moderators have taken definitive action limiting various users actions on the site, at various times, which we haven't always explained on meta. In particular, at times we have "punished" Harry, and at other times we've defended him against others users. We're mostly very hesitant to make any such action public -- in part to avoid moments of public shaming which we feel would be disproportionate to the offenses (when we have to intervene with users that we feel are acting in good faith, we do so very carefully), and in part to preserve the cloak of mystery and awe around the moderators superpowers. :-)

At this same time, you do make a valid criticism, and we're aware that the "rules" whatever they are, are not enforced consistently. It might not be as bad as it appears -- I want to point out that some things we do are relatively invisible. One rule which I'm going to try to enforce much more thoroughly in future is that direct insults and outright rudeness on mathoverflow (meta is a free-for-all, as far as I'm concerned, sorry), will result in suspensions.

Thanks Pete for the advice on "punishment" -- you can see I put it in scare quotes because I knew it wasn't the right word. We'll have a talk about how to deal with this issue. Something I want to mention is that as a result of this thread, after I'd said we'd been in touch with someone doing systematic downvoting, an entirely different person fessed up to doing the same thing on a larger scale. We hadn't noticed this by looking through the database, which was a bit annoying, but hopefully we'll be better prepared if there's a next time. When they wrote to us, they were very concerned about their admission remaining private, and we'll certainly respect that.

We've certainly noticed some other problems that haven't provoked outcry on meta, and it seems that these we should continue dealing with privately -- in part because we've sometimes been wrong about them!