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grasstust
Registered: Apr 2007
Posts: 43 |
What's stopping someone from creating a fake account for downvoting?
I just don't get why people are allowed to vote anonymously...
What's stopping me then, from making a new fake account just
for down (or up)-voting someone?
I think this happened to Offence's Trick and Treat. Somebody just
made a fake account and voted 1 and 2. And it just fell from top 10 to
below 70.
I have never seen a downvoter voting with a handle, they're all anonymous...
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bugjam
Registered: Apr 2003
Posts: 2579 |
I guess the point is that every new account is checked and approved by the moderators. Plus, why bother to create a fake account, when you can downvote anonymously anyway? :-)
But the story is endless, I hope this system will be deinstalled (or radically overhauled) for the sake of peace and quiet here, and especially to stop distracting from the real purpose of this great site: preservation of scene history. |
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Danzig
Registered: Jun 2002
Posts: 440 |
And you get bugged by the moderators / perff if you do... I know what I'm talking about ;) |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11350 |
i can assure you that every vote less than 5 (did not bother checking the rest) comes from legit accounts. |
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grasstust
Registered: Apr 2007
Posts: 43 |
>Plus, why bother to create a fake account, when you can downvote
>anonymously anyway? :-)
To downvote more than once.
OK, so the checking process is thorough, good to hear. But why have anonymous voting at all, clearly a lot of the downvoting would not be done if people had to take responsibility for their votes. |
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NecroPolo
Registered: Jun 2009
Posts: 231 |
Man I'm so sad I can't create and send you some potion that you can drink and start to see the voting hubble bubble as I see :) |
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grasstust
Registered: Apr 2007
Posts: 43 |
Well, I do agree about not taking voting very seriously. But voting is used for stand alone compos aswell as a nice reward for a group to be appreciated. I mean, even HCL started complaining about a demo not deserving a top 10 placement, so it is taken at bit serious among the people on it.
And yeah, for better or worse, I think competition and lists have always been a strong force in the scene, even now that we've grown old and grey. :) |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11350 |
"But why have anonymous voting at all, clearly a lot of the downvoting would not be done if people had to take responsibility for their votes."
what responsibility? everyone is allowed to vote what he likes. everyone is allowed to think demo xyz sucks for whatever arbitrary reason and "downvote" it accordingly. and he can do it anonymously to make exactly that possible for everyone, including those who dont feel like discussing their arbitrary taste in public each time they bother to vote. |
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TheRyk
Registered: Mar 2009
Posts: 2218 |
Quote: Well, I do agree about not taking voting very seriously. But voting is used for stand alone compos aswell as a nice reward for a group to be appreciated. I mean, even HCL started complaining about a demo not deserving a top 10 placement, so it is taken at bit serious among the people on it.
And yeah, for better or worse, I think competition and lists have always been a strong force in the scene, even now that we've grown old and grey. :)
Quote:Man I'm so sad I can't create and send you some potion that you can drink and start to see the voting hubble bubble as I see :)
Word up & Cheers from one of the "worst" coders that ever breathed! :) Didn't stop me, though. |
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grasstust
Registered: Apr 2007
Posts: 43 |
Because the system is clearly getting exploited. And I think if people are afraid to stand behind their vote with their alias then maybe they shouldn't vote. Or their vote should count less. :) |
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TheRyk
Registered: Mar 2009
Posts: 2218 |
I totally agree that the current system in some cases tells more about how popular/hated sb is than about skills/quality. Recognizing that I'm "hated" enough to be downvoted anonymously rather encouraged me to make my own votes public than to define myself by taking those votes TOO seriously, otherwise I'd have thrown my hardware out of the window/killed myself/changed to Atari coding forever long ago. ;)
In general, I appreciate feedback very much and think, justified/constructive criticism helps you to improve. The comments are much more interesting to me than anonymous votes.
However, there are so many more serious issues in the world than the (in some respect stupid) CSDb voting system. At least it's sth to complain about/always a good icebreaker topic if you wanna start a conversation IRL with a scener you never talked to before :)
This so-called "weighted" (others would just call it "wrong") average calculation is sth which could easily be fixed without much ado/protests :)
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enthusi
Registered: May 2004
Posts: 677 |
Funnily, there are no such things as 'downvotes'.
In total I think annonymous voting is much rather used for 'upvoting' in some cases. If someone votes '1' its usually because he or she doesnt like that particular release very much - for whatever reason. Valid. Stupid but valid. |
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spider-j
Registered: Oct 2004
Posts: 498 |
Quote: Because the system is clearly getting exploited. And I think if people are afraid to stand behind their vote with their alias then maybe they shouldn't vote. Or their vote should count less. :)
Sorry, but afaik anonymous voting is pretty much standard on every competition or election or whatever else contains some sort of voting in real life. I don't get why you make up conspiracy theories ("afraid to stand behind their vote"), just because people (like me) decide to choose an option they're used to all of their life.
So this decision makes every one of us (funny enough: the majority of voters on CSDb) suspicous in your eyes?!? |
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The Overkiller
Account closed
Registered: Mar 2002
Posts: 342 |
Quoting enthusiFunnily, there are no such things as 'downvotes'.
In total I think annonymous voting is much rather used for 'upvoting' in some cases. If someone votes '1' its usually because he or she doesnt like that particular release very much - for whatever reason. Valid. Stupid but valid.
Hmmmm no .... often it's used for simply retaliation against a person or a group. |
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Bitbreaker
Registered: Oct 2002
Posts: 504 |
In a lot of releases there's lot of work, and i know, that when you do your release with such a passion, that you start to tend to overrate your own production. That said, we have to sometimes accept that our impression doesn't meet the public opinion, or even the opinion of some that would waste their time with excessive downvoting.
In the end I FUCKING DON'T CARE. All that counts is, if _I_ can have a nice wank on my brilliant productions, and while on that, i really don't care about others :-P |
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grasstust
Registered: Apr 2007
Posts: 43 |
Quoting spider/MYDSorry, but afaik anonymous voting is pretty much standard on every competition or election or whatever else contains some sort of voting in real life. I don't get why you make up conspiracy theories ("afraid to stand behind their vote"), just because people (like me) decide to choose an option they're used to all of their life.
So this decision makes every one of us (funny enough: the majority of voters on CSDb) suspicous in your eyes?!?
Yes, all CSDb-users are suspicious in my eyes. :)
No, noone is suspicious. I'm simply trying to say that the current system is being abused.
No, I don't have conspiracy theories, I'm simply giving you hard evidence of how it is being abused.
And well, I think it's a stretch to compare this to larger voting systems such as a country's election. This is a small scene, and we're quite anonymous already. Why shouldn't we stand behind our votes with our aliases?
Actually, to be honest, I just read a point that have made me think a bit more about my point of view: Retaliation - Someone gives me a low score and that makes me want to give him/her a low score too. This could be a case with an open voting system. |
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grasstust
Registered: Apr 2007
Posts: 43 |
Quoting BitbreakerIn a lot of releases there's lot of work, and i know, that when you do your release with such a passion, that you start to tend to overrate your own production. That said, we have to sometimes accept that our impression doesn't meet the public opinion, or even the opinion of some that would waste their time with excessive downvoting.
In the end I FUCKING DON'T CARE. All that counts is, if _I_ can have a nice wank on my brilliant productions, and while on that, i really don't care about others :-P
:) I like the way you put that. I dunno, I'd like at least a few reactions, good or bad. I'm not too fond of wanking to my own productions. If absolutely noone cares, I think it would be a bit sad.
Damn... I got this childish urge to paint someone wanking to their own demo now... Maybe it could be a credits part for a bigger demo. When you present the parts with an icon and credits, you have this little character in the corner wanking to each part. Ofcourse, he would wear a "BITBREAKER" t-shirt! ;) |
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spider-j
Registered: Oct 2004
Posts: 498 |
You got me wrong. I didn't want to *compare* voting here to elections. I wanted to say, that *everywhere else* (and also elections) I'm used to vote anonymously (i.e. parties). So I also do it here - just out of habit. And I still see no problem with that. So yeah, maybe every now and then some dumbass expresses his lack of mental balance with voting low for some 1337 prod. The little influence that this has on the overall score is imho no argument to change a system that works for the majority. |
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Sasq
Registered: Apr 2004
Posts: 156 |
Downvoting fills a purpose.
It balances out the upvoting of certain releases. Like when some old and nostalgic inducing production get voted all 10s by old and nostalgic sceners, responsible downvoters make sure it gets bumped off the top 3 list :)
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Frantic
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 1646 |
Downvoters are those who have realized that extreme voting counts more than "nuanced" voting. Can't see what there is to object to that? :) |
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enthusi
Registered: May 2004
Posts: 677 |
You know what would help *muhaha*, if my (tm) system of ranking would be used ;-)
There must be a million threads on this. But each user could simply have a personal TOP5/10 of each category which is then read every 24h or so for the rankings => All problems gone and we really dont need bottom100 releases and we dont even need a list of 'average'. Im ok if none of my demos shows up in more than one *g* TOP5 list ;-) |
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HCL
Registered: Feb 2003
Posts: 727 |
I would say that bottom 10 is almost as interesting as top 10 :) |
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FATFrost
Account closed
Registered: Sep 2003
Posts: 211 |
ooh... i never realised the scene was a compo.... |
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grasstust
Registered: Apr 2007
Posts: 43 |
Quote: ooh... i never realised the scene was a compo....
If you refer to what I said, yes, I'd say competition has always been part of the scene. Who can make the best and most, etc, has always been an important factor.
I wouldn't say that with most of us being around 40 years old, this competition is very serious, but competition is an important drive in the scene and I'm not sure we would have had such an amount of cool releases if it wasn't for the numerous democompos.
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11350 |
Quote:Downvoters are those who have realized that extreme voting counts more than "nuanced" voting. Can't see what there is to object to that? :)
i for example always vote either 10 or 1, simply because i think that its impossible to give a fair more fine grained vote without investing a lifetime into judging and comparing a few ten thousend productions. and i do it anonymously because i dont fucking feel like discussing why i am up or downvoting some particular release.
IMHO a whole lot of the entire non existing "problem" could be solved by simply removing the "voting stats" button. can you hear me perff? =) |
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enthusi
Registered: May 2004
Posts: 677 |
Ah, merely removing the visible stats for votes would indeed help! :) |
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Street Tuff
Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 88 |
NEVER FORGET!
a good example for anon downvotes! |
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Kristian
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 126 |
I think perhaps upvoting is a bigger problem than downvoting and I am quite sure the comradery is living well here at CSDB.
I think the voting scale should be 1, 2, 3 as in bad, medium, good. Trying to find nuances between 1-10 is just boring anyway :) |
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MagerValp
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: |
At Datastorm we will only allow anonymous downvotes, and the winner will be the release that scores a perfect 1.0. Get with the program people! |
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Romppainen
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2008
Posts: 40 |
Quoting Groepazi for example always vote either 10 or 1, simply because i think that its impossible to give a fair more fine grained vote without investing a lifetime into judging and comparing a few ten thousend productions. and i do it anonymously because i dont fucking feel like discussing why i am up or downvoting some particular release.
I can see your point there. I find valuating things using pre-defined scales really painful experience due to rather black and white way my mind works in forming any kind of opinions, I simply either like or dislike something and forcing myself to come up with any alternatives between those two options lead always in troubles as in most cases I can't even describe properly the reasons about why I like something, or don't. I think any feedback is better than no feedback at all but personally I prefer some constructive criticism in written form over numbers which just put the subject somewhere in chart but don't tell anything about why it ended up in that particular place.
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Linus
Registered: Jun 2004
Posts: 639 |
Quote:
... making a new fake account just
for down (or up)-voting someone?
Most excellent idea, thank you! |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11350 |
Quote:I think perhaps upvoting is a bigger problem than downvoting
indeed. you just have to look back at a handful recent releases to find some that have a surprisingly high voting, although they are utter crap.
Quote:I think the voting scale should be 1, 2, 3 as in bad, medium, good. Trying to find nuances between 1-10 is just boring anyway :)
yep, thats what i would do aswell. |
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Frantic
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 1646 |
To avoid comradery it would be better if the releases were anonymized as well, so people don't know what they vote for. |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11350 |
IF the votes would actually be ment to form an unbiased and objective type of measurement, then yes. |
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Frantic
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 1646 |
Exactly. :) |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11350 |
i wonder if some people realize that IF that was actually the case, it would be very likely that they wouldnt be allowed to vote. |
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Peacemaker
Registered: Sep 2004
Posts: 243 |
i submited an idea to the admin about a better voting system to avoid anti-voting. i never got an answer. its pretty sad to see that the admins dont care about ideas. improve the voting system, or completly remove it. its buggy now ;)
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Fierman
Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 85 |
the voting system is fine. if you don't like it, you should not use it. |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11350 |
"I submited an idea to the admin about a better voting system to avoid anti-voting."
sorry to say, so did about every other user already - most of which think they had a better idea than you, or us. (and you got a reply from me personally, remember? =P)
and what fierman said. |
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grasstust
Registered: Apr 2007
Posts: 43 |
So... If you think something is wrong, don't try to change it, just stay away? I respect that this can be some people's opinion, but I for one will try to change something when I think it doesn't work or is wrong. I do see that there's little that can be done here, though. |
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v3to
Registered: Feb 2005
Posts: 150 |
if there is a problem with the voting then it is quantity. adjusting the rating by a single vote i'd say there are too few people involved. |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11350 |
"if there is a problem with the voting then it is quantity."
THIS is what you need to change grasstust. there is no alternative. |
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Zaz
Account closed
Registered: Mar 2004
Posts: 33 |
Make the raw vote data easily downloadable. Then everybody can experiment with alternative weighting strategies to their heart's content, and publish the results wherever they like. |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11350 |
and direct all "look how MY method works tons better than YOURS, now install it !" requests to Zaz =P |
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Zaz
Account closed
Registered: Mar 2004
Posts: 33 |
Quote: and direct all "look how MY method works tons better than YOURS, now install it !" requests to Zaz =P
Sure, I'll set up a special account for that purpose and pipe the input to one of my UNIX devices :) |
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Peacemaker
Registered: Sep 2004
Posts: 243 |
groepaz: and your answer was not worth an admin ;)
suggestion:
if voteamount is higher than x , remove worst vote
examples.:
1. amount of votes for an entry: 50 - remove the worst vote
2. amount of votes for an entry: 100 - remove the 2 worst votes
etc.
easy to code. i would code you that even if you want ;)
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v3to
Registered: Feb 2005
Posts: 150 |
question is: is a low vote really a downvote or true opinion? or - which is worse: that voters try to control an avarage rating or an algorythm?
for some reason the japanese anti-individual proverb "loose nail needs to be hit" comes to my mind. even weighting the votes here on csdb is a mixed blessing imo. |
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enthusi
Registered: May 2004
Posts: 677 |
it really really breaks down to low numbers.
The avergage is VERY badly defined, i.e. its variance is high. Median is even worse :)
And still: low votes probably mean that the voter did not like the release :)
I know there are people who vote 3 even though they think 8 but they dont want the ranking to be 9 etc... So what?
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Bitbreaker
Registered: Oct 2002
Posts: 504 |
Funny how everyone wants to interpret the stats in a different way, until it suits ones needs :-) |
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Peacemaker
Registered: Sep 2004
Posts: 243 |
suggestion: ask the admin of http://remix.kwed.org/ . the voting system works just fine there =)
its kind of works like i states earlier on here.
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Sander
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 493 |
What's stopping someone from creating a fake account for downvoting?
Dignity should. |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11350 |
"groepaz: and your answer was not worth an admin ;)"
i know. you could have known the type of answer you'll get by reading up on earlier threads on the same topic though.
bitbreaker has leading for that matter. |
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TomoAlien
Account closed
Registered: Jul 2007
Posts: 17 |
Quote: What's stopping someone from creating a fake account for downvoting?
Dignity should.
Too bad dignity is becoming more rare these days. |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11350 |
"Dignity should"
it should, btw, also enable us to let people vote whatever the fuck they want anonymously :) |
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Magnar
Registered: Aug 2009
Posts: 60 |
Why not split anonymous vote statistics from those who actually voted with their real names?
By Making two different scores and lists out of the votes.
I would prefer that default is that you always vote with your real name unless you press an "Anonymous vote" button on the release page in order to vote anonymously. Everyone registered can then vote anonymously and have their votes separated from those who vote with real handles.
In this case, you can preserve the both systems (because, yes - some of us just simply wants to vote anonymously or not vote at all) and get two interesting score results.
Maybe also the anonymous vote should be like facebook "like" or "dislike" button. It really might not need a total grade from 1-10...
My thoughts on the subject - go implement. :) |
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Fierman
Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 85 |
btw.. a voting system has lead to heated debates on other databases as well, even where the objects subject to voting were not submitted by users themselves. Boardgamegeek is a famous example. Eventually a weighted voting system -with dummy votes- was implemented, and the underlying algorithm is kept secret to prevent users from up- or downvoting.
Quite sad.. Methinks there are more important things in life to waste energy on.
from http://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/BoardGameGeek_FAQ :
"What is the Difference Between BGG Rating and User Rating?
If you look at a list of games within BGG you may see a BGG Rating number between 1 and 10. If you then click on that game and go to the game's main page you will see a User Rating and an Average Rating. Most of the time, the BGG Rating number will be different from the User and Average Ratings. Why is this?
The User Rating of a game is the Average Rating rounded down to 1 decimal point. The Average Rating for a game is the average of all ratings from registered BGG users that the game has received, calculated by adding up all individual ratings and dividing by the number of ratings.
The BGG Rating is based on the Average Rating, but the number is altered. BoardGameGeek's ranking charts are ordered using the BGG Rating. To prevent games with relatively few votes climbing to the top of the BGG Ranks, artificial "dummy" votes are added to the User Ratings. These votes are currently thought to be 100 votes equal to the mid range of the voting scale: 5.5, but the actual algorithm is kept secret to avoid manipulation. The effect of adding these dummy votes is to pull BGG Ratings toward the mid range. Games with a large number of votes see their BGG Rating alter very little from their Average Rating, but games with relatively few user ratings will see their BGG Rating move considerably toward 5.5. This is known as "Bayesian averaging" and a quick search of both BGG and/or the Web will reveal much discussion on the topic.
In effect, usually the games with many votes will Rank higher than those games with the same Average Rating but fewer votes. |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11350 |
Quote:Why not split anonymous vote statistics from those who actually voted with their real names?
personally i dont see the point to show names at all and would rather remove that "feature" completely. no need for a second class vote result and everything connected to it. |
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The Shadow
Registered: Oct 2007
Posts: 304 |
Creating a fake account for the purposes of downvoting is beyond sad. |
