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[–] PeaceSeeker [S] 0 points 4 points (+4|-0) ago 

This goal may be unattainable. It merits thought (obviously the point of your post), but I don’t immediately see how publicly the line in the sand can be drawn without providing an immediate roadmap to abuse.

I mentioned how in many cases it may be impossible to properly distinguish between organic and inorganic voting (thus the recent controversy). It may therefore be necessary to rely on information about how users came to that thread, which may or may not involve items such as pinging and the viewing of comment histories immediately prior to voting.

I am a bit of a serial upvoter. Would I then be flagged and banned for this? Sometimes I will go through a farming commercial spammer’s history and downvote them as well. Should this behavior be bannable?

I've asked these same questions with respect to /u/Mumbleberry, who also serially downvotes the histories of spammers. Putt acknowledged that this behaviour could before the ban reversals be picked up by the metrics -- /u/Mumbeberry received a vote manipulation warning for this reason.

It seems it will be a matter of either forbidding all history-voting or permitting all history voting. I don't see how an in between can be accomplished without issues like last time arising.

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[–] heygeorge 0 points 3 points (+3|-0) ago 

It seems it will be a matter of either forbidding all history-voting or permitting all history voting.

Voat is and should be more complex than that. Arbitrary rules for the sake of... what sake? Avoiding subjectivity in van scripts? Maybe the answer to bans (and especially at Voat’s current scale) is better served by human review.

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[–] PeaceSeeker [S] 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

Maybe the answer to bans (and especially at Voat’s current scale) is better served by human review.

Even the metrics that caused all those vote manipulation bans had the ones banned individually reviewed before they were banned. If the person doing the voting doesn't know what behaviour is acceptable, how will the one doing the review?

The limits should at least be more clearly defined than they are. I don't think addressing the area from which people downvote is unreasonable, given that "inorganic voting" by individuals is as much a concern as voting with alts.

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[–] 19101313? 1 point 0 points (+1|-1) ago 

Maybe the answer to bans (and especially at Voat’s current scale) is better served by human review.

Human review requires human resources. Human resources require growth. Growth requires users do not intentionally silence other users to run them off the platform, as we have witnessed for years.

I feel like I'm living in clown world when everyone else seems to think it's a great idea to run people away from the community while at the same time demanding features which require those very same users stop running people off the community.

[–] [deleted] 0 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago  (edited ago)

[Deleted]

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[–] PeaceSeeker [S] ago  (edited ago)

Hmm, that idea has some promise I think. If a sitewide rule were introduced where you can't downvote a user more than 3 times a day (in conjunction with downvoting having to be done the day a comment is made / within 24 hours of a comment being made), without also upvoting them elsewhere, then that too would severely limit the effectiveness of any kind of brigading. It would require far more alts be used, which would in turn enable Voat to make account relation connections.

/u/PuttItOut, has this idea been considered? Is the issue that it would be considered too serious a limitation?

EDIT: Actually, there may be some similarities here with the solution to downvoting I presented a while back. Can't remember for sure, would have to check.

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[–] argosciv 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

viewing of comment histories immediately prior to voting

I'm quite confident that this metric is already in place. It wouldn't be very difficult though, if it isn't.

I may or may not write up a more detailed response regarding spam/pings/manipulation -- not firing on all cylinders at the moment.

@Crensch

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[–] PeaceSeeker [S] ago 

I'm quite confident that this metric is already in place. It wouldn't be very difficult though, if it isn't.

It may be, but if so users should be told.

The fear seems to be that going into specifics would enable the manipulators to dodge detection...but if we are specific enough, what means are they left with. "Oh, I guess I'll just downvote him whenever I see him!" But isn't that organic, and therefore acceptable? Setting specific boundaries will at least reduce the severity of manipulation if it won't outright do away with it, while giving innocent users a clear understanding of what they can and cannot do.

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[–] 19101324? 1 point -1 points (+0|-1) ago 

If I were a betting man, by and large I would guess 100% of the users who complained about being given a warning had, at some point in the past, clicked a users profile and opened everything they could and either up or down voted that specific user, from their user profile page. This is one of those inorganic vs. organic things that I have yet to see two people in the community share the same opinion on, yet is an obvious elephant in the room.