Quote:
There's a large amount of users on this site who abuse the rating system to their own ends and finding some way to restrict the damage they can do shouldn't be something that's brushed off with the troll feeding arguement.
Just an FYI - this arguement is purely anecdotal in nature. Once you believe that "a large amount of users" do something, you will continually look for examples to prove your theory.
Do some threads occassionally get rated into oblivion? Absolutely. Does it happen all the time? Absolutely not. If it truely were "a large amount of users" abusing the rating system, you would have the following:
- Users signed up to do nothing but rate people down because it's fun.
- 4 legitimate users who survive despite the thousands of folks that sought out Alla just to abuse the rating system.
Here are examples of posts I'll rate down without ever replying to the threads:
- Gil buying advertisers
- People that advertise "free" macs, XBoxes, Botox or Dried Salmon (and whatever else)
- People that get onto the site and post incoherent racist and sexist remarks just to be inflamatory
- People who make 30 posts in one forum in an attempt to spam the forum and clutter the boards with nonsense
- People that make uncalled for personal attacks (our server forum had a user banned for posting a link to what he claimed where photos of another player in a compromising position)
- People who start karma-orgy threads (these are the real abusers who usually are looking to rate up a sock to be nasty - an incredibly small minority of all users)
In all of these cases, my replying to the these threads just to rate them would bump these threads to the top. I cannot take a 3.0 post to sub-default with a single rating. So, if I'm the first one to rate the poster "awful," I both open myself up to potential sock abuse AND bump the post up to the top of the forum list.
Look, if you suspect a user of abusing the karma system, all you have to do is PM one of the admins. They will review the users ratings and determine whether or not the user is abusing the rating system. (By the way, a single thread does not constitute "abuse.") If the user is abusing the rating system, the admin can do several things:
- Warn the user that their ratings appear to be abusive in nature & explain that they will risk losing rating ability and/or a site ban if the behavior continues.
- Chose to no-rate the user ID in some cases (meaning, you can click "awful" all you want & it won't matter).
- In extreme cases, ban the user from Alla outright.
But, they can't do this if you just come in with the generalized "everyone abuses karma!" complaint. Because, as a majority user of Alla that would fall into your "large amount of users" category, I must be some freakish outlier who forgot to abuse the rating system. OR - just maybe, it's not a "large amount of users."