http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=175887

Over the last week I've lost 17 experience points.

Worse, I DON'T KNOW WHY. And I don't know how to find out.

Help?

    -- Chip Salzenberg, Free-Floating Agent of Chaos

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
(ar0n) Re: Why is my reputation falling?
by ar0n (Priest) on Jun 20, 2002 at 02:51 UTC

    You're being targeted by a votebot (Marza: Yes, that's what a votebot is).

    We know who's responsible for it, but we're holding off on taking any action right now while we come up with some sort of policy. Right now, that's all I can say.

    Please stand by.

      OK, I'll stand by for now. But I have several questions....

      "I'll start with who, what, where, and when, followed by whither, whether, wherefore and whence, and follow that up with a big side-order of 'why'." -- Zaphod Beeblebrox

          -- Chip Salzenberg, Free-Floating Agent of Chaos

        The answer is 42 ;)

        I had some spare votes so I donated them to you.

        Edit:Doh it is 42, guess it is time to reread HitchHikers....
      Ouch, in my half year at the monastery I didn't hear of anything like it. Someone is actually using a kind of a tool (votebot?) to cast -- votes on nodes of an unsuspecting monk? That's quite unethical.

      But wouldn't there be an easy way to fix this? Say, could the pm gods write a script to counter or deter the perpetrators of all evil? I'd imagine, one could block -- votes coming from one IP repeatadly? Although, it won't work for non-static IPs or requests coming via a proxy ? ;/.

      chip I sympathize for you, brother. I'll give you as many ++ votes as I can get tomorrow to at least somehow offset the lost you've experienced recently.

      _____________________
      # Under Construction
        Ouch, in my half year at the monastery I didn't hear of anything like it. Someone is actually using a kind of a tool (votebot?) to cast -- votes on nodes of an unsuspecting monk? That's quite unethical.
        I was the target of a votebot cabal as well. I was going through a rough period in real life concurrently, and the agony of the votebot was nearly enough to drive me away from the monestary entirely.

        Thankfully, I've gotten through both evil influences now. {grin}

        -- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

      Please forgive my ignorance but a "votebot" What is that? A script that looks for his posts and votes them down?

Re: Why is my reputation falling?
by vroom (His Eminence) on Jun 20, 2002 at 03:27 UTC
Re: Why is my reputation falling?
by Util (Priest) on Jun 24, 2002 at 17:37 UTC

    $chip++ while $votes_remaining--, even if the gods restore your XP; this is to fight evil.

    It sounds like the gods will take care of the immediate problem, but for the future (and for other monks), these might help non-gods see patterns in voting:

      Thank you very much ... though I'm afraid your code snippet will leave you with negative $votes_remaining. :-)

          -- Chip Salzenberg, Free-Floating Agent of Chaos

        ... though I'm afraid your code snippet will leave you with negative $votes_remaining. :-)

        Seems people will always be tripping over the --$var vs. $var-- subtlety where do and while enter the picture...

        --rjray

(shockme) Re: Why is my reputation falling?
by shockme (Chaplain) on Jun 26, 2002 at 04:35 UTC
    Ouch. I'd like to think that my current lack of XP is due to votebots, but in all likelihood it's because many of my posts suck.

    I feel certain that vroom and his cohorts will prevail on this issue, but it really pisses me off that someone would get --'d on the basis of nothing more than their nick. Most of us put alot of thought and effort into our posts, and to get zapped by someone who hasn't even read the post . . . unethical doesn't even begin to describe it.

    Hang tough chip. I usually have more votes than I can use, and I'm always looking for someone who can use them. You'll be mine for the next few days.

    If things get any worse, I'll have to ask you to stop helping me.