[thesite] voting for articles

[isaac]

> >How do we stop that now?
> >
> >Hint: we don't.
>
> per user account we do.

And?

I can rate you as a 5. Then I can create 5 other logins, and rate you again
5 times with a 5.

I can do this in a manner that is barely suspicious or likely to be
investigated by anyone. I fail to see where the user account bears any
relevance.

A 5 from my legit isaac account (in existence for a long time, and with a
high-level of contribution to back it up) is worth the same amount as a fake
5 from my fluffymonkey account (yes, it exists as of an hour ago, but has
never written/rated/commented. I just wanted to remind myself of the
registration process).

> and that's really all we can do.

Incorrect. We could do it per verifiable email address by not activating an
account until a reply had been received from the registered account. Many
list subscriptions work in this manner.

Of course, we cannot stop people with their own domain adding 50 usernames,
or people adding email addresses to their stable via free email providers.
But it's another level of frustration to reduce the amount of fucking with
the system.

> The honor system is nice. but as we start creating more and more incentive
> to create good content for evolt (average total rating, cubes, etc.),
> there's the side effect of competition which could pursuade someone to
> pump up their own article.

Absolutely true. Very little to stop this occuring at this very second,
however. It took me all of 15 seconds to logout, register another user and
be ready to rate something.

Again, we can discourage this by fostering a positive and honest feeling
amongst members if we feel that a situation is getting out of hand.

> so, now we're encouraging fewer ratings?

We're impeding more ratings. Evidence: the email that kicked off this
thread.

> >I would not expect much variation in purity level, but would definitely
> >appreciate the increase in ratings.
>
> I disagree. Unless, of course, people are already creating junk users to
> do this.

Which they could easily be doing. (I don't think it is happening (at least,
I doubt that it's happening much), but then I don't think that allowing
anonymous ratings would really spawn many junk ratings either).

> to be fair, the system discourages this by the way its set up. sure, it
> can happen, but it's less of a temptation than "heres a field we're never
> gonna use again for identification, and here's wher eyou rate" that what
> you suggest implies.

For me to give 5 5's in the current system:

 - rate 5, logout, re-reg, rate 5, logout, etc, etc. 30 seconds each time.

Under a potential system, frequent re-registrations could be discouraged by
warnings/blocks that exist when 2 reregistrations are attempted from the
same IP, or within a certain time frame.

That could be expanded to handle anonymous ratings in a similar manner.

On subsequent visits, the information (name/email) can be prefilled via use
of a cookie. This is done on many forums in which I participate but don't
wish to bother registering.

> see alistapart.com's forum. that's not a community. that's a question and
> answer session.

I have not used their forum. But if many users recognise many others and
place trust based on past experience, I'd say it's somewhat of a community.

> part of a community, i think, is making the individul recognizable and an

Ratings are not publically viewable to registered members. I fail to see
your point.

> part of the point, especially with comments, is to say "oh, well isaac
> hates everything having to do with XXXXXXX, so i'm going to ignore his
> comment about it" and stuff like that.

You'll note that I have not advocated anonymous posting.

We have enjoyed a good level of comments on many popular articles, and your
points regarding user trust are perfectly valid.

> so, officially, that's a -1 from me in the "anonymous rating&comment
> department. though, i'm totally down with making it easier for registered
> members to comment.

I have a -1 on anonymous comments, and a tentative +1 on anonymous ratings.

As with yourself, I'm all for making it easier for users to comment.
Especially those who are registered members of our lists, but not of the
site.

I'd also like to make it easier for visitors (external articles, search
engines, etc) to have at least some level of participation.

Added bonus of the on-the-fly registration is that we can send out an
automated email raising awareness of everything else we do, and encourage
them to participate.


isaac

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