in reply to Re^5: Notification of XP increase has gone wild (maybe)
in thread Notification of XP increase has gone wild (maybe)

Do you see a viable reason why someone should get a gratification for casting hundreds of votes week after week on old nodes?

I'm not sure why you would ask me that question. Was there anything in my post to suggest I believe someone should get such gratification?

A rule only makes sense if it can be enforced.

That's a separate problem. It's also the real problem, and the one worth focusing on.

I can think of many ways to disguise such votes as legitimate. ... I think it's much easier to limit the exploit instead of implementing a surveillance apparatus to hunt down the culprits.

It is not unusual that addressing a symptom is easier than addressing an underlying problem.

I think there are a variety of patterns of behaviour that could easily be detected and flagged for a closer look. If code were implemented to detect such patterns, I do not think it would be beneficial to publicise the details; I am in two minds about whether it would be beneficial to publicise its existence.

  • Comment on Re^6: Notification of XP increase has gone wild (maybe)

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Re^7: Notification of XP increase has gone wild (maybe)
by LanX (Saint) on Oct 25, 2022 at 22:53 UTC
    > > Do you see a viable reason why someone should get a gratification for casting hundreds of votes week after week on old nodes?

    > I'm not sure why you would ask me that question.

    Because you said

    > > > Changing the economics will not stop the problem of people abusing the system,

    And I disagree. Limiting the gratification will make the abuse useless.

    Additionally: trying to detect the abuse will not only cost far more, the ensuing discussions will be nerve wracking.

    Hence, if there is no viable reason to allow that gratification ... why keep it?

    Cheers Rolf
    (addicted to the 𐍀𐌴𐍂𐌻 Programming Language :)
    Wikisyntax for the Monastery

[reply]

      Ah, I understand. The intent of my earlier message was: changing the economics to fix one type of abuse will not stop the underlying problem that there will always be someone finding a way to abuse the system.

      I assume also that only a very small proportion of users seek to abuse the system; in that case, every time you tweak the system to close down another possible route of abuse, the collective impact on non-abusers is far greater than that on abusers.

[reply]
        > very time you tweak the system to close down another possible route of abuse, the collective impact on non-abusers is far greater than that on abusers.

        In general yes, in this case no.

        It's pretty easy to decide.

        The gods could do a SQL query to see how big the percentage of monks is with high proportion of archive votes.

        I bet this will mainly show two° groups,

        • potential abusers who practically never post,
        • prolific members who don't care if they loose the gratification factor after let's say x=40 archive votes per week (or 160 per 4 weeks).

        Just ask someone like eyepops - an outspoken "archiver" - if he would care ... :)

        Cheers Rolf
        (addicted to the 𐍀𐌴𐍂𐌻 Programming Language :)
        Wikisyntax for the Monastery

        °) well three, I forgot about choroba ;-P

[reply]

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