Why aren't downvotes removed when the reason for giving them no longer exists?

Question

To @Dan specifically, because his comments are being presented here, but generally, to all who behave in like manner.

Here are Dan's comments attached to my answer concerning Interpretations of Elihu in Job

He said:

Revelation has no place in a question about Job. This is not a Christian site. We stick to the text (in its original context) and must show work for going beyond this. More than a perceived topic must be shared when citing other texts outside of the work asked about (i.e we don't proof-text - stick to the historical, linguistic, and literary aspects of the text - not later religious interpretation)

To which I replied:

@Dan I agree. Thanks. I appreciate "greatly" your constructive comment

He had clearly stated his objection to what he regarded as a Christian point of view, and I was happy to accommodate it.

However, when I realised he had downvoted my answer, I said:

I just noticed the downvote from you. I think there is a significant degree of high handedness happing on this site. What do you think I would have done to my answer, if you had've just commented WITHOUT the downvote. I would have removed the inappropriate reference myself. You would then have taught me something valuable and my answer would no longer be downvotable. You guys should be TEACHERS in the first instance and EDITORS in the second.

To which, he replied (emphasis mine):

my down vote is for this not really doing much to elucidate the original historical, linguistic, or literary context of this passage. Rather than citing scholarly research, it is merely speculative (plus it imposes a much later Christian worldview on the text evidenced by your citation of 'You know, "All have sinned an fallen short of the glory of God".' -which is from the New Testament). My DV and edit are unrelated, however. My edit was to bring this in line with the site policy of showing work, the comment as well. The DV is because as a regular user I don't find this answer helpful.

Firstly: this is such pompous nonsense. This site is not an academic site, and there is nothing that requires anyone to format their answers as if they were presenting a thesis.

Secondly: he still hadn't let go of the reason for his downvote. It's there taking up 1/3 of the space in his comment. But, it was then only a phantom reason.

Thirdly: the last sentence of his comment is really pulling the standards of this site down, and he should repent in dust and ashes for having written it.

He is telling me and the whole community of members here, that regular users should follow his lead and downvote any answer they personally don't find helpful. Come on, guys! I know a banner advertising that as a foundation stone upon which this site is built, would certainly not be helpful in attracting new members to the site.

Moving on...

He then said:

it's always been how things are here

Again the bur under his saddle was confirmed by the destination of his link, but he had already removed the reference that caused him pain.

Conclusion

The behaviour of some of the senior members on this site does the site no credit at all. Dan and Susan and Caleb should be setting a better example to follow than downvote-any-question-that-you-don't-personally-find-helpful.

Answer 1

It appears that in the span of 3 minutes, you had 5 answers which were downvoted yesterday. Each downvote counts for -2 reputation. One answer was downvoted by 4 separate users. This resulted in a total of -16 reputation. Often times flagging an answer can result in an answer being placed into the review queue. You will gain the ability to see the review queue at 350 reputation (So you only have +58 more to go!). When this happens, it is possible that many with a reputation above 350 will view your answer and downvote it if it is seen to be a particularly low quality and can result in a rapid loss of reputation.

I do not believe that even a moderator can cast a vote against you more than once. Therefore, if 4 seperate moderators downvoted your answer, it probably wasn't very good (sorry - no offense meant. I honestly haven't even read the answer in question, but I can tell you that you can get a badge for deleting it, and plenty of us have done so.)

Because so many answers were downvoted in such a short time period, the answers were placed into a moderator queue for review as clearly no one could possibly read all 5 answers in 3 minutes. The note about serial voting states

When a single user continually votes (up or down) on many of your posts within a short period of time, the system considers these votes to be invalid and removes them. This could happen for a variety of reasons, such as a user finding a user's great answer and visiting all of their posts to upvote them, or a user getting into an argument with another user and downvoting their posts indiscriminately in revenge. No matter the cause, this sort of systematic targeted voting is not considered normal behavior and the system will not allow it.

If such a voting pattern continues to happen between two users mutually or from one user towards another, or otherwise falls outside of normal voting patterns, moderators and/or developers may investigate the matter; intentionally voting merely to reduce or inflate another user's reputation is considered abuse.

Such votes will generally be invalidated as part of an automated process that runs every day, but may also be invalidated manually by the staff after an investigation.

I do know that you cannot see who votes on your questions (up or down) but I CAN tell you that it could not have been Dan, Susan AND Caleb, but at most one of them, as only a single user voting could kick off a serial downvoting review or reversal. Blaming all of them really isn't fair. All of them have worked very hard to earn their reputations and moderator status. Even Dan, who I think you are really trying to finger and blame for this. Furthermore, for every downvote, you lose one reputation. Dan did not lose 5 reputation yesterday near as I can tell, but the reporting appears to be delayed a bit. You might check back tomorrow. You may find you owe him an apology. Unfortunately (in my opinion) bad actors do not receive a penalty for this bad behavior.

Instead of blaming moderators for answers that multiple community members found to be poor (all of your questions still had -2 or more after serial downvoting was removed) perhaps you should just accept the constructive criticism that seasoned members of the site are trying to give you. Regarding Dan's comments in particular, the purpose of this site is to determine the meaning of the passage in the original context and a Christian interpretation (in the case of the Old Testament) is always the wrong one and the older Jewish interpretation should be preferred where interpretations differ because the Christian interpretation is not how it was viewed in the original context - hence Dan's (correct) downvote.

If you still do not agree with Dan's edit, as the Original Poster, you can revert it (something which I did do to one of Dan's edit on one occasion - and for a similar reason,) However this site does have academic expectations (though participation is not limited to academics) and you are expected to post high quality answers which show your work and follow site guidelines. If you are unclear on those - this is the right place to ask.

In the future, if you have a problem with a moderator, you might also try the library chat room where many of them hang out. If you ask respectfully, they are probably willing to justify their downvotes, offer constructive criticism and help you figure out site complexities like serial downvotes and offer other general guidance. I can assure you they are all nice people who are generally willing to help.