I recently tried to un-upvote a comment, and received a message that if I did so, I would not be able to upvote it again:

Are you sure you want to undo your upvote on this comment? You will not be able to upvote it again.

Unlike this question, I completely understand what the message is saying. However, why am I not allowed to upvote it again? What's the reasoning behind this decision?

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Related: some history of the vote locks for regular voting, the announcement of undoing comment upvoting, and some notes on the ordering of upvoted comments. –  Arjan Jun 2 '12 at 19:31
@Arjan: thanks! –  WChargin Jun 3 '12 at 5:03
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1 Answer

up vote 14 down vote accepted

The only valid reason for un-upvoting a comment is if the upvote was a mistake.

As it stands, you can only un-upvote a comment within 1 minute of upvoting it.

Since you have to take a very concious decision to un-upvote, allowing you to upvote after un-upvoting would be rather... inconsistent.

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5 minutes? I think it's 60 seconds, and only if you're still on the page. I'd say it's merely to allow for flagging, as flagging is blocked once you upvoted. –  Arjan Jun 2 '12 at 19:30
@Arjan - Thanks for the link and correction. –  Oded Jun 2 '12 at 19:31
What if the comment was edited to be something you disagree with, though? –  minitech Jun 3 '12 at 2:45
There is more than one valid reason for un-upvoting a comment. –  nobar Oct 23 '12 at 3:55
@nobar - for example...? –  Oded Oct 23 '12 at 8:34
1) Upvote, then not-sure, un-upvote, further review, upvote. 2) Upvote completely by accident, un-upvote, read comment, upvote. –  nobar Oct 23 '12 at 15:34
@nobar - If you un-upvote a comment, you can't upvote it again. The "are you sure" message for un-upvoting a comment is clear about that. –  Oded Oct 23 '12 at 15:36
@Oded. Yes, I understood that. That part I don't know is "why?" -- which is what this question is about. I am not satisfied by the "inconsistent" rationale. The other explanation that I have seen is "We do not want flip flopping" -- also not satisfying. –  nobar Oct 23 '12 at 15:43
@Oded - I agree with nobar. It's not like this is natural functionality, someone took the time to craft and test this functionality. This means there was purpose, and purpose has reason. Any way to figure out who made the change, and ask? Edit: Found the "perpetrator" :) - meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/1170/… (Mentioned in comments to original question). –  user66001 Jan 13 '13 at 19:35
@Oded: One simple reason is that you can change your mind wrt. a comment. A la "A wise man changes his mind sometimes, but a fool never." I see no harm in allowing "flip-flopping". In fact, it would probably make SE's code a few lines simpler. –  jdm Apr 16 '13 at 18:00
I accidentally upvoted this comment, immediately undid it, accepted the consequences, and now regret it. Now that I've read it, I agree that it adds something useful to the post, but I can't show that now. –  Iain Elder Nov 22 '13 at 4:30
@Oded "allowing you to upvote after un-upvoting would be rather... inconsistent." Humans are not machines, we can think and have a good conclusion and them un-upvote. We can learn, re-think, change the paradigm and upvote again. I think that's why StackOverflow is good... to learn, change wrong beliefs, change paradigms. We aren't making a surgery, we are just voting a comment.. we can miss and fix that. –  Wagner Mar 7 at 16:30
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