Current ratings attack on CockHero Teases

[SissyTashi]

That would add some fairly needless complication to the rating system. What rating shows up? The hybrid, the registered only? Both? It would require doubling the database to deal with registered/unregistered votes seperately (Though there may be a way of just tagging a vote as "Unregistered" and making it count only for the unregistered tally, but that again is more work for... Not much of a gain).

If there needs to be a change at all, shifting it so only registered users can rate a tease would be the simplest and easiest to implement, I think, with a "One vote per account per tease" being an added option (if it doesnt already work that way). If a person wants to vote bomb, they'd have to register a *lot* of accounts for it to make any difference, and that would leave some pretty obvious traces. If a non-registered user wants to rate a tease, or series of teases, registration is very easy and free.

[cumhardy]

Yeah, I was suprised when I found I could vote without logging in, it seemed like it would make it easy to cheat.

Its weird that someone would go to these lengths to downvote a webtease, some people have no life...

[supermokkori]

I took a quick look at the logs and there is indeed a small IP block that has done a lot of votes on Cock Hero teases recently. Specifically it seems to be somebody from England using Orange Home. They are switching IPs and then voting repeatedly.

No real way to prevent this - other than engaging in an endless arms race, where I try to block them and then they use a different method to get around the block. This is why we don't elect our politicians using online polls and why "moot" is the world's most influential person 2010.

Well that's lame.

What's to prevent them from "stuffing the ballot" when it comes to TOTM voting time comes along?

[shell]

I had seen this mentioned in chat and looked for it yesterday, but only found it this morning, as I went through each and every forum, instead of just the one's I thought it would be under.

Anyway, really? WHOA! Well, shame on whomever was blocking and cheating.....I'm thinking a month in denail for them....who's with me??????????????????????????????????? *grin*

Okay.....so, maybe I am way off track with this thought.....but here goes anyway.

Isn't the idea of writing web teases supposed to be about getting pleasure from either writing them, or from the knowledge that others are enjoying them? Yes, Yes, Yes, I know that the world is built around fixing your eyes on the prize, the reward, the award at the end of something....I get all that...heck even gave my son a speech about that this morning before school.
But...okay, so when I wrote the one tease I wrote, I wrote it thinking...."I wonder who will do this...I hope they like this part...I can't wait to see feedback in the thread, finding out how guys did with it."
That was my pleasure. That's what excited me.

Would it have been nice to see my name in lights, having won? Sure, everyone likes acknowledgement for things they do. But that shouldn't be the reason those of us who choose to write a webtease, writes them.

I admit that it has entered my mind that when I write another one, I should probably submit it after the 20th of the month, if I want a shot at the possibility of winning. But that is only guided by having a authors mindset, thinking of when the best possible time to be published is.

Aren't the web teases supposed to be about the author enjoying sharing their thoughts in ways of demands upon individuals to obey what is being asked of them to do......and isn't the enjoyment of the reader to be the touching, the teasing, the sexual bliss of knowing that they are doing things to their body, that someone a thousand miles away from them, a random stranger, if you will, has told them to do?

Come on people.......the award, the winning the title should only be secondary to the pleasure of writing and/or reading.........
Who ever cheated....fess up or not....but knock it the heck off and go back to the first priority....pleasure!!!!

*smiles softly* Okay.....I'm done now, thank you for your support! *giggling*

[dtspam]

@Shell
Sure you're right. But still the voting system is a helpful tool to decide which teases to look at.
I might look at a low rated tease if I like the title or the description. But teases >4.x are usually very good, even if I'm not particularly interested in the scheme. So I always look at those. If someone now messes the rating system up to a point that it is useless, that's just annoying.
And as there is a TOTM every month I think every decent and regular author has a very fair chance of winning one and thus being recognized for the effort he puts in. As it is a regular thing its not strictly a competition, where only the "very best" wins. But with a fucked up rating the nomination process no longer works properly. And those messing it up just destroy a nice tradition on this site.

[Incubo]

Well said Shell.

I've said similar before...ratings don't mean a whole lot to me. I don't write to win badges or awards. I write because I like it. (Though admittedly, I haven't shared any new teases for a while now.) Nor do I choose which teases to read based on ratings either. What everyone else likes or doesn't like, may not be what I do/don't. Why let the "group" decide what is or isn't good for me?

The feedback thread is far more important to me than the rating. I value the reader's opinion, but simply clicking a number doesn't exactly tell me their opinion anyway, so why worry about it? If they hated it enough to give it a 1, then didn't bother to tell me why, then I guess their opinion wasn't all that important afterall. If they hated it so much that they felt necessary to cheat the system and bomb it with a bunch of 1's, then I'm just going to assume it isn't the tease they hate, but rather, they hate me. That's OK too, but again, if you don't feel strongly enough to tell me why, then I don't value your opinion enough to care.

Personally, I'd support getting rid of ratings all together, but that brings back a few other problems that we just managed to get rid of. So maybe not a perfect solution.

[Incubo]

Actually ... that's a pretty good philosophy. If I may, I have a question though. You mention a few other problems that we just managed to get rid of ... I'm curious as to your opinion on what those are ... and how they affect the ratings/votings system in general.

I was referring to the one page advertisement "teases" with that comment. Since their "disappearence" is now based on the rating filter, getting rid of ratings would bring them all back again and I'm sure I'm not the only one who doesn't want that.

[janmb]

The way to combat this, or at least make it such a lot of hassle that it hopefully would no longer be considered worth their while, would be to:

1. Require login
2. Require an account to exist for 1 month before being allowed to post on forums
3. Require at least 50 forum posts (subtract spam) to consider an account fully operational
4. Require a fully active account in order to rank teases at all
5. 1 vote per account, lifetime, global


Yes, this would mean a lot of hassle and make the doorstep for new users quite a lot higher, but it is what it would take to effectively combat this. Sure, dedicated lamers could still play along with this system and still have many accounts to vote from, but it would be a LOT more hassle and these accounts could no longer be created in the spur of the moment.

[cumhardy]

The way to combat this, or at least make it such a lot of hassle that it hopefully would no longer be considered worth their while, would be to:

1. Require login
2. Require an account to exist for 1 month before being allowed to post on forums
3. Require at least 50 forum posts (subtract spam) to consider an account fully operational
4. Require a fully active account in order to rank teases at all
5. 1 vote per account, lifetime, global


Yes, this would mean a lot of hassle and make the doorstep for new users quite a lot higher, but it is what it would take to effectively combat this. Sure, dedicated lamers could still play along with this system and still have many accounts to vote from, but it would be a LOT more hassle and these accounts could no longer be created in the spur of the moment.

really all that hassle just to stop someone messing with votes?
I agree with rating teases requiring a login, but the rest seems kind of needless.

[Human]

The way to combat this, or at least make it such a lot of hassle that it hopefully would no longer be considered worth their while, would be to:

1. Require login
2. Require an account to exist for 1 month before being allowed to post on forums
3. Require at least 50 forum posts (subtract spam) to consider an account fully operational
4. Require a fully active account in order to rank teases at all
5. 1 vote per account, lifetime, global


Yes, this would mean a lot of hassle and make the doorstep for new users quite a lot higher, but it is what it would take to effectively combat this. Sure, dedicated lamers could still play along with this system and still have many accounts to vote from, but it would be a LOT more hassle and these accounts could no longer be created in the spur of the moment.

really all that hassle just to stop someone messing with votes?
I agree with rating teases requiring a login, but the rest seems kind of needless.

I dont agree with point 2, but the rest seem fine.

[Finlander]

I was thinking of a up/down system. The rating would be displayed in %. This way a down vote wouldn't affect the average as much as clicking 1* affects a 5* rating.

[Human]

I was thinking of a up/down system. The rating would be displayed in %. This way a down vote wouldn't affect the average as much as clicking 1* affects a 5* rating.

I had thought about a similar thing too; but then with such a system in place, ratings can again be manipulated by upvoting some other teases.

[Bandit224]

The way to combat this, or at least make it such a lot of hassle that it hopefully would no longer be considered worth their while, would be to:

1. Require login
2. Require an account to exist for 1 month before being allowed to post on forums
3. Require at least 50 forum posts (subtract spam) to consider an account fully operational
4. Require a fully active account in order to rank teases at all
5. 1 vote per account, lifetime, global

I think #3 is too excessive. Some people are naturally not very talkative; we still want them to vote. #2 doesn't solve anything. A person planning on winning TOTM would only create 1000 accounts the month before. #1, #4, and #5 are pretty necessary though.

[Bandit224]

Personally, I'd support getting rid of ratings all together, but that brings back a few other problems that we just managed to get rid of. So maybe not a perfect solution.

Actually ... that's a pretty good philosophy. If I may, I have a question though. You mention a few other problems that we just managed to get rid of ... I'm curious as to your opinion on what those are ... and how they affect the ratings/votings system in general.

Without the rating system, we'd have a hell of a lot more 1 page ads spamming the webtease section again. Some are amazingly persistent, but at least the other ad creators seemed to have stopped.

[cumhardy]

considering the amount of people viewing webteases, the active forum members only represent a very small section of the community. why should you need to be forced to be active on the forum just to rate teases?