C. K. Dexter Haven ended up doing some google fu on a particular poster posting to an Avatar thread. The results concluded that the poster was spamming the board.
Prior to this, I made a comment to that poster , in thread, that something was “off”, given the low post count that person had.
Is it possible, and has it been discussed, to implement some sort of rating system whereby other posters can rate and give feedback on other posters? I have seen other boards use a system where “karma” is determined based on a similar system.
Looking to a low post count is great, but doesn’t work for higher numbers.
Then again, I would hate to be the one who gives this power to The Pit.
It’s been talked about before and always decided against for one reason or another. The general consensus is that if we got stuff like that (or avatars or custom titles or what have you) then we’d be too much like all the other boards of the internet. Also, people worry about abuse. People with axes to grind might try to lower others’ karma in bad faith. Me, I have no problem with a karma system but you’re talking about the SD administration here. They don’t even want to throw out the ratty curtains, much less buy an ottoman for the living room.
Speaking for myself, and not for the moderators as a group or administration in general: I don’t like the idea. I see the possibility for a huge amount of passive-aggressive BS with such a system. Given the amount of sniping and feuding that goes on around here between the various personalities when they are posting by name, I shudder at the thought of people trying to damage each others’ reputations when they do so completely anonymously, without a (user) name attached to a vote.
I’m on another board with a rating system. In your User CP below your subscribed threads with new posts you see a list of the last fifty ratings you got, who gave them to you, and any comments they left when they rated you.
This is one of those features I never saw the point of, so it’s not something I would want to see either. One of the things I like about the SDMB is that we go through arguments in a lot of depth and things are supported or taken down point by point. Reputations get built up that way. I think that’s better than a ratings system with points.
Yeah, it’s really not needed on a discussion board. The other board I mentioned is a programming board, and it’s quite useful to help beginners know how good the help they’re getting is.
I have to admit it’s definitely an ego stroke that my rating there is, and I quote:
Ellis Dee is a glorious beacon of light (400+)
heh.
EDIT: Instead of good/bad it’d actually be funny to be able to rate posters left or right, as in politically. Your insult is their compliment.
Yeah, the feature wouldn’t really be worth it around here. I’m not really sure how it would combat SPAM, anyways. A bad spammer is just going to get reported. A good one is gonna look like a regular poster to most people.
Now, if we didn’t have moderators, I could see implementing a system like YouTube has, where, if enough people mark a post as SPAM, it disappears. But I don’t think that would have caught the Spammer anyways.
BTW, how much SPAM do we get, anyways? Do y’all actually delete it, or is it just “disappeared”? (If the latter, you should be able to get pretty accurate numbers.)
We’ve banned about 40 spammers since January 1, although some of them signed up days or weeks earlier. We ban most of them before they can post: 16 of them got through. We’ve been getting more spam for the last month or so, maybe because of the holiday shopping season or something. We’d all be happy to see that die down already.
I’m not a mod, never been a mod, so I don’t quite understand this, with those 24, how did you know they were spammers if they didn’t even post? One would think that that’s what makes them a spammer is that they post spam, if they ain’t posting anything, aren’t they notaspammer?
(“Even a fool seems wise if he keeps his mouth shut” and all that. (My mom’s favourite Bible verse))
Given the huge argument that breaks out anytime a legitimate poster is suspended or banned, what will a rating system accomplish? There have been occassions when I find myself in complete agreement with someone I may fundamentally disagree with on a different issue, and I think giving someone a -500 on a post I disagree with and a +500 on a post I like doesn’t tell anyone anything.
Baron Greenback got it. Some of them have dead giveaway names like Viagr1aRules, and others turn up thousands of hits if you enter them into Google. A lot of these people sign up with names that are gibberish, so if you search for that name and see it’s registered at hundreds of forums, it’s a good bet he’s a spammer. And you can check their email addresses to see if they have entries at sites like Stop Forum Spam. And in a few cases, some of them will register and enter a signature with spamacious links, but they won’t post right away. That’s just kind of begging for it.
We do not need to make it easier for the wolf pack mentality that labels new posters as trolls whenever they make a thread that is judged a “shit stirrer”.
Consensus seems to be running pretty high against this. I haven’t seen anyone argue in favor, nor present any reasons that this would be helpful. The mods are discussing as well (we discuss any ideas that are brought forward), and sentiment there so far is pretty much the same.
