I mean, BPR, since you even admit you were blanket voting without any other criteria, then went back.

That's separate from the mod in specific power tripping though. Yeah, you got the reaction you wanted, but that particular mod is already well known to be batshit.

Look folks, there's always going to be edge cases where one of us is going to down vote persistent types of posts. I've done it, I've seen people that I know are reasonable, decent folks do it. But at some point, vote blitzing ceases to be a useful form of action and turns into just wagging dick to feel good about ourselves.

So, yeah, now that mods can see blitzes easily, we can all expect to see more bans for it. And, inevitably, there's going to be cases where it looks like a blitz, but wasn't intentional. So we can look forward to posts here because of those errors.

What's the answer though? You can't tell at a glance what a user's intent is, or if they're paying enough attention to realize they're even voting on things in the same community. But, that kind of vote manipulation is also a fucking problem. Mods need some ability to keep their communities rolling along as intended. Lemmy, and even piefed, are pretty damn sparse with mod tools. Limited options to shape how a community is guided and help keep a vibe beyond just banning people.

Having something other than gut instinct to use as a metric for keeping out bad actors is necessary. And the truth is that most people down voting multiple posts in a row aren't there to participate in the community at all. They're just reacting emotionally to titles and thumbnails.

Which is fine! Nothing wrong with that, and it's the best argument for down voting being an option because it's great at filtering out people that just want to gripe about the surface of things. A down vote makes it so that less of them come in and grump at other people.

But it does mean that mods are going to have to judge you based on that alone. Nobody has time to chase you down and ask your motivation.

And, OP, just in case, it doesn't matter what the community was, what the topic of the posts were. I'm not arguing over that side of things; I'd likely have down voted a few before having to decide if a report about the community to admins would do any good, or if I should just block it and move on. I'm talking about the reality of how voting as an aspect of threaded forums works, and the outcomes of it shape the nature of lemmy/fediverse activity.

All of it is about balance. Any tool can be abused by mods, admins and users. The tools' merits aren't solely determined by their potential for abuse. The benefits have to be weighed. It has to factor in what other tools are available (or aren't).

My advice to mods? Use vote records sparingly. If you're not intending to very rigidly screen for your community as a place of safety, chances are that it won't help much. You'll run yourself ragged trying to figure out who is and isn't engaging in fuckery as opposed to fat fingering buttons, or is voting their conscience and just happen to be opposed to the subject matter, or genuinely think that a post or comment isn't on topic and relevant/useful and think that about multiple posts.

It's a sucker's bet. Save it for when you're trying to get a new community rolling, or when your community is a vulnerable shelter.