Re: A couple of ideas for dealing with votebots

[$code or die]

As I see it, the problem with votebots is not that they might affect XP. And in fact that was the whole point of the node that you refer to in your opening sentence.

Frankly, a couple of -- votes is hardly going to make my XP drop significantly. It's the fact that votebots go out and "distriminately" vote up or down certain users. Votebots don't have brains. They don't evaluate the content of a post before voting. They just do it. And it's sad. If someone doesn't like what I say, I don't mind if they downvote me, maybe I'll learn something, maybe we'll agree to disagree. I can come to no such happy conclusion with a votebot.

I don't care about the XP, but I can see how it can be annoying if a perfectly reasonable post is downvoted. It doesn't matter if it's only one or two votes - It won't affect your XP, especially if other people are ++ing the node. But the fact that someone might use multiple logins or a votebot to manipulate the rep of a node of mine is upsetting. What's wrong with one node one vote?

I'd be happy to stop hearing about votebots. Whatever counter-measures are introduced, someone with a bit of free time will come up with a way around them. And the whole discussion will start again.

Simon Flack ($code or die)
$,=reverse'"ro_';s,$,\$,;s,$,lc ref sub{},e;$,
=~y'_"' ';eval"die";print $_,lc substr$@,0,3;

[mischief]

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!).