I think we're talking about different types of votebots - you mean the ones that people use just to increase their XP by using up their votes every day; I'm referring to the ones that are designed to affect XP. The discussion in the CB I mentioned was talking about these kinds of bots, too (I *think*!) - apparently merlyn was losing 40+XP per day. And jcwren's post was sparked by jcwren losing votes over what he considered a reasonable post, and specifically mentioned votebots as part of the reason he left.

I'd be happy to stop hearing about votebots too, but they're a problem, or used to be at least. Apparently "steps have been taken" so that they're not so much of a problem anymore, but to be honest I thought my suggestions for preventing abuse couldn't be easily circumvented, which is why I posted them (and dammit I need more XP!).


In reply to Re: Re: A couple of ideas for dealing with votebots by mischief
in thread A couple of ideas for dealing with votebots by mischief

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":



  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.