do multiple personalities skew voting on Orble?

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Writers Forum - May 2008

do multiple personalities skew voting on Orble?

May 5th 2008 07:15

Am I correct in assuming that if people create multiple user accounts on Orble they can use one identity to boost the votes of another identity?

Does every account require a unique email or IP address?

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Posted By: Morgan Bell - Category: No Category

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Comment by jon

May 5th 2008 07:16

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It should not as we keep track of IP addresses as well as who is actually voting. Someone would have to go to quite a bit of trouble to get around this under most circumstances.

Comment by Tracy

May 6th 2008 10:57

Movies and Life

I was wondering the same thing...

Comment by Cibbuano

May 7th 2008 01:50

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anyway, the karma makes that difficult. You could open up five accounts and vote for something, but that'd only give you 5 points. Otherwise, one account, with a lot of posting and commenting, can give a single 10 point boost.

Comment by Michaelie

May 8th 2008 11:10

Flick Wit

Well I know katyzzz has most if not all of her identities up to 10 karma points, and regularly gives herself congratulatory comments under the different log-ins.

But I don't really care about the points - it's the united front she gives in her opinions, especially when they aren't balanced opinions, and lean more towards nastiness.

But I doubt there is any way to stop that, and I don't mind about the others that have multiple identities, as they aren't using them for these purposes.

Comment by Tracy

May 9th 2008 02:33

Movies and Life

I don't understand how katyzzz's karma can be 10 then?

Tracy

Comment by Michaelie

May 9th 2008 10:34

Flick Wit

I don't understand Cibb's comment. I just know what I know.

Comment by Cibbuano

May 9th 2008 21:26

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er - sorry if what I said was confusing. Basically, I'm suggesting that having more than one account with 10 Karma should be a lot of work, and most people wouldn't think it was worth it.

People with multiple accounts at 10 are spending quite a bit of time to maintain it, then. Maybe we need to make it harder?

Comment by Michaelie

May 10th 2008 07:07

Flick Wit

Ah, I get what you are saying now. Maybe making it harder would help, but if they are already spending every waking minute cultivating identities on Orble, I doubt much will deter them. Plus, each identity just votes on the posts of each of the other identities, killing two birds with one stone - boosting votes, comments and apparent support of one identity while boosting the karma of the others.

It does seem pretty easy to get 10 karma points though.

Comment by Tracy

May 10th 2008 22:34

Movies and Life

Hi Cib

I think it's a hard one for Orble to police...

Tracy

Comment by Ahmed

May 11th 2008 12:52

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Orble isn't large enough to worry about gaming, when it is and the top ten/twenty list means lots of traffic (in the thousands) it may start being an issue.

Comment by Cibbuano

May 12th 2008 01:28

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yes, Ahmed, you have a point. Other online communities have actually disintegrated from the flood of trolls and gamers...

Comment by Ahmed

May 12th 2008 02:01

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I actually meant gaming the system but your point is valid too I suppose

haha.

Comment by Louie

May 15th 2008 00:35

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I thought it was funny until now, guess it is a little like cheating.

To get all the identities up to a Karma of Ten must be a lot of work, I remember it felt like forever until i got to ten or maybe I just dont try hard enough

Who has the time or the patience? crazy

Comment by Kleonaptra

May 16th 2008 13:10

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It took me forever to get to 10, dont anyone say its easy!

Comment by Morgan Bell

May 16th 2008 13:45

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im pretty sure i got to 10 within a week, and a couple of friends who joined around the same time got to 10 in even less time . . . i might be over simplifying but post 3 times and send 20 comments in quick succession and you will probably hit 10 . . .

i was wondering how if adsense can tell if you click on your own ads why orble cant tell if the same user is clicking on their own vote button from different profiles?

Ahmed is right that while the community is currently relatively small it probably doesnt affect traffic too much, but it also probably deters new writers and impacts on them building confidence, so it might be worth considering while the site is still being tinkered with for the days ahead when it is really large?

Comment by Ahmed

May 16th 2008 14:37

techy.Bytes
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Tinker with it now and you could potentially lose a lot of members. The security and fail safes should evolve with the community.

In any case I don't think it's even possible to develop the security measures much faster than the speed in which the community grows, after all most holes are closed up only after they're exploited.

Comment by Morgan Bell

May 16th 2008 16:27

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i suspect it is being exploited now . . .

i cant see how making the system fairer would cause people to leave, if anything it should encourage them to stay . . .

some people unfortunately will go to alot of trouble to bully others by employing multiple user profiles and they may dominate the homepage at the expense of newer members by falsifying accounts . . .

maybe part of the reason theres so many people joining orble and then abandoning their blogs before they achieve results is because the voting is so skewed?

Comment by Ahmed

May 16th 2008 16:31

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Well when a blog gets a following on Orble odds are the following is mostly from other Orble members who comment on each others blogs almost exclusively.

I dunno how that's supposed to be fixed, I do agree though that more people would stay if they felt like people appreciated their post. The isolationist attitudes orblers carry (even if it's passive) may be causing upstarts to jumpship before long.

Comment by Morgan Bell

May 16th 2008 17:28

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it just seems like if you need to get a score of 20 to get on the default homepage, and if the people you have a rapport with or your subscribers arent online (or perhaps you have neither if you are new) within a couple of hours of when you post then the article "expires" quickly never to be seen again, but if you are able to vote for yourself you can post 6 items in a row and boost them all to over 20 and hog all the homepage visitors . . . once you are on homepage everyone clicks and votes and comments on you and your scores are hugely inflated

orble is probably the friendliest online community i have been involved with, bar a few easy-offended complainers (who it turns out are all the same person)

i would only suggest that votes coming from the same IP address as the original post should either be not included or included at a lesser value (to account for people who share a connection like workplaces or housemates) . . . there has to be some technical way to make each user prove they are unique?

maybe comments could be worth more than votes?

or repetitive comments/votes exclusively to a small circle of people shouldnt count towards karma?

or voting on a newer blog should allocate more "encouragement" points to it than an established blog?

i dont know all the answers but i think it warrants discussion and is worth looking in to

Comment by Morgan Bell

May 17th 2008 10:51

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and perhaps posts like this (CLICKHERE for more . . . ) are not really the most constructive

Comment by Damo

May 18th 2008 02:36

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Can't comment, laughing too hard.

Comment by Cibbuano

May 18th 2008 12:19

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I think that Orble does track IP addresses?

Comment by Ahmed

May 18th 2008 12:23

techy.Bytes
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Can we watch you gouge out your eyeballs via webcam?

two things: not necessarily fool proof (think proxy/public places) and doesn't matter how the IP addresses are tracked, the question is what sorts of rules do you enforce based on same IP accounts. As Morgan pointed out, it's a lot more complex than it might appear at first.

Comment by Morgan Bell

May 18th 2008 12:39

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technical question (perhaps Ahmed might know, or orble admin)

sometimes i dont realise im logged out and i vote on a post i like and it increases their score by ONE point (my karma is TEN) so i log in and go to press the vote button again to give them the karma i wanted to and an auto message pops up telling me ive already voted . . . would this be a case of orble recognising my IP or is it more likely to be some memory setting on my individual computer?

Comment by Ahmed

May 18th 2008 12:41

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heh, this problem has been around for yonks, in the past there was no IP checking so you'd just log back in and vote.

Actually I'm not sure if it has something to do with your IP or your cookies (which you could avoid simply be deleting them and voting again).

For what it's worth I have the same issues.

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