Best way to deal with op abuse?

[godix]

- Making multiple accounts to inflate/deflate video scores.

I say make it so their opinions don't count but do NOT let the user know. That way he spends all his time creating worthless fake accounts that don't do anything instead of putting his time to finding other ways to be annoying.

- Making spam opinions full of lots of words to boost usefulness ratings.

Get rid of the usefulness rating until someone can figure out a better way to measure usefulness than word count. At the very least get rid of the 'most useful' list.

- Coercing people during op exchanges ("You rub my back, I rub yours").[/qoute]
just block their ability to make ops.

Also, do you think these people should be publicly shamed?

I bring enough shame on myself publicly enough as it is don't you think?

[downwithpants]

there are a bunch of suggestions on the opinion system here: http://www.animemusicvideos.org/phpBB/v ... hp?t=47070

one idea derobert proposed was to normalize opinion scores given. this would reduce the effect of all-10 op givers, and all-1 op givers, but not op-givers who do both equally.

to address people making multiple accounts, are email addresses verified by sending an member account activation email? if so, ban by e-mail account. if not, perhaps this should be implemented along with an option to display the e-mail publicly.

as for usefulness, my suggestion was for other viewers or other opinion givers to rate opinions given to the same video on a amazon.com-esque "was this review helpful? yes/no" basis. a usefulness score would be calculated from the helpful/non helpful ratio.

op exchange collusion probably can't be completely eliminated. however, implementing a score-given-normalization might discourage the practice, as frequently giving high scores would reduce the weight.

[badmartialarts]

Could switch usefulness over to one of the readability scales but that would mean that the person was just long-winded and using big-ass words. And still, easy to game.

[TriGGiT]

- Making multiple accounts to inflate/deflate video scores.

There could be a way to deal with this but i dont know how to use it, this is the thing:
Block the Users through their mac address(physical adress) this would partially take care of the problem. Out of the billions of computers in this world that number(physical adress) is unique(and cant be changed) for each one of them, it identifys your network adapter.

[[Mike of the Desert]]

- Making multiple accounts to inflate/deflate video scores.

Warn them privately or in public (without took too much attention.), if they accept to stop this kind of thing, letting you delete every fake account and fake op. Give them the chance to be forgiven.

- Making spam opinions full of lots of words to boost usefulness ratings.

This can be though. There could be created a completely new type of moderators that only care about this, checking the opinions and the members that seems suspicious. Or simply quit for a while this system, as others said.

- Coercing people during op exchanges ("You rub my back, I rub yours").

Again as others said, I quote Godix, even if before as always I would warn them that what they are doing is completely unfair and against the rules. Then it would be possible to ban their possibility to make ops for a while, or forever.

[dwchang]

Like others, I feel their opinions should be ignored by the system and furthermore if not outright bannination, they should have some sort of priveleges locked like say ever being able to be on the top 10%, top star scale, having their opinions ever count, etc. I mean, that's why people are doing it no? I think it'd be justice for them to never be able to achieve what they were cheating to achieve (BE TEH FAMOUS :O)

As for public shamings, perhaps I'm in the minority, but I am all for it. Given I am an advocate of the death penalty and believe it is a deterent and in this case, I feel that if the community is made aware of the people doing this and that they can be caught, in turn it means less people will do it (b/c they know they can be caught now).

However, by NO MEANS tell them HOW you are catching them since that would in turn lead people to try new methods.

Perhaps I'm just a mean bastard, but I think a public shaming is quite fair for people who outright cheat and nullify the system, but my main reason is the possibility to deter further abuse.

Furthermore, I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of the more arrogant and outright assholes in the community probably abuse the system and I think it'd be justice to see them finally revealed for who and what they are.

An insecure cheater.

[trythil]

As for public shamings, perhaps I'm in the minority, but I am all for it. Given I am an advocate of the death penalty and believe it is a deterent and in this case, I feel that if the community is made aware of the people doing this and that they can be caught, in turn it means less people will do it (b/c they know they can be caught now).

Wow, from opinion abuse to the death penalty. AMVs must be serious business.



In any case, there was a system proposed for silently ignoring opinions from people who are obviously abusing the opinion feature. I think that's good enough.

Outright public humiliation, although generally humorous, is, I think, somewhat unnecessary -- and the analogy is blatantly false, anyway. Capital punishment appeals to survival instincts as a deterrent (and, even then, its effectiveness is questionable -- but never mind that.) Humiliation over the Web...well, what does that do?

It attaches a stigma to a given handle. Possibly an IP and MAC address. None of those, unlike life, are a permanent attribute of an individual.

You may drive away weak-willed trolls, but you will not stop others with this. Particularly capable trolls will simply change their handle and identifying addresses and keep going at it, fueled by the knowledge that their actions will win them recognition and fame. Well, it's infamy, but that's good enough.

Hence my at your analogy. There just isn't any connection between the two concepts as a deterrent, except at the most superficial level.

If you really must stroke your id, just wait until the target of a silent ignore starts asking why her or his opinions no longer count towards anything. Then it's off to the verbal electric chair, I suppose.

[pen-pen2002]

There seem to be two basic approaches to this problem: Statistical changes, and mod oversight.

Statistical changes have the advantage of being low maintenance, but the disadvantage of still being possible to fool.

Mod overview has the advantage of actively identifying users who abuse the system, but is high maintenance.

I think one possibility would be to allow users to rate the usefulness of an opinion, and have that score replace the current word count system.

Having first reviews count for less would be a great idea, and it would have a huge negative impact on sockpuppets if we combine it with the previous (they would have to give a number of useful opinions to get the weight up to the full value for each sockpuppet.

Or we could allow users to flag reviews that violate the system: This would alleviate a lot of complaints of flaming, revenge, etc. Of course this would require someone to go through the flags.

If any system is proposed/implemented that requires mods to check opinions for signs of abuse, I volunteer to help out. I would have no problem scanning 50+ opinions a day if it will help solve this difficult problem.