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  • #61
    1. Taking care of the spammers is apparantly much work, PCR's, private warnings, giving bans. The StarCount system will take 80% away from that since short spam messages won't be that attractive anymore.

    2. The only thing you have to deal with with the starcount is the pasting of large ammounts of texts. That's quite easy to spot, and I think that it's even possible to exclude the pasting of large amounts of text from the startcount. I'll investigate that.
    Formerly known as "CyberShy"
    Carpe Diem tamen Memento Mori

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    • #62
      Stars won't solve a single of those spamming problems. Heck, people can just still ignore their stars and go for post count - just like people now can ignore their reputation and quality and go for post count. A ban or a PCR doesn't even take a minute to do, and a warning isn't incredibly complex, either.

      Spam will still be attractive to spammers. Only indeed, you'll have two different sorts of spammers, postcount-spammers and star-spammers. Mind you, the stars would serve even less of a function if they were only visible in the profile. If, however, they would be visible, like avatar's, in every user's post, I would immediately pronounce that an "over my dead rotting user account" feature.

      And your idea that only pasting would have to be dealt with is amazingly optimistic. It doesn't take much time or thought to add extra meaningless sentences to the post. Consider, a standard spam post looks like

      fork


      While that may make me feel bloodthristy and PCR the literary genius writing that, such a piece of drive takes less than a second to evaluate & ignore. And, for people who post such stuff predominantly, automatic reflexes form to check their posts out very quickly.

      With stars, you'll have spam more like

      Yes, that's a good idea. I'm not completely sure if it would work exactly that way, so maybe it would be good to add something else, but I can't now really imagine what. So it's nice. I'd like to see it in, hopefully.


      The first sentence by itself might make a valid point, and the rest is tacked on to the end to make the post artificially longer. This means more text and less content, which worsens the signal-to-noise ratio, and in fact, such somewhat longer spam-posts can turn a forum into a dunghole much faster than the standard 10-char spam. This is exactly what your system encourages.
      Solver, WePlayCiv Co-Administrator
      Contact: solver-at-weplayciv-dot-com
      I can kill you whenever I please... but not today. - The Cigarette Smoking Man

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      • #63
        Now you imagine that you have to add 3 of those junk lines to every post you're going to post on poly. That's a hell of a job. Only doing it once or twice won't make a difference. You have to do it EVERY time. Do you know how much time that's going to cost you?

        And yes, not all spammers will care about their starcount. That's why I said 80%
        I think that the real spammers will care about it. Real spammer spam because of their title. So they will spam as well because of their starcount. People who love blingbling A will love blingbling B as well. Well, at least 80% I predict

        The copy/paste item has almost been eliminated on my forum, I'm working on it right now 8)
        Formerly known as "CyberShy"
        Carpe Diem tamen Memento Mori

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        • #64
          It's not going to take that much time. I wrote that drivel without really investing any more time in it than it took me to type it. That's a hell of a job ? Making 300 of those posts is easier than making one great post.

          And again, what it would do is make the forum a worse place to stay for the majority who are not spammers. Because instead of putting up with idiotic 10-char posts, they'd have to put up with idiotic 5-sentence posts, which waste a lot more reading time. Would sure scare me away if I were new...
          Solver, WePlayCiv Co-Administrator
          Contact: solver-at-weplayciv-dot-com
          I can kill you whenever I please... but not today. - The Cigarette Smoking Man

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          • #65
            Hey! I resent that example of a spam post.

            But really CS, I don't see the point in the new star system, if the mods will get more work. I know how much work it can be on a tiny forum as the one I'm mod on, I can only imagine how much it must be here. And if the mods think it's a bad thing, it is a bad thing, because without the mods having time and strenght to enforce the system, it's like a virus for the forum.
            Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God.-Isaiah 41:10
            I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made - Psalms 139.14a
            Also active on WePlayCiv.

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            • #66
              Once again, Solver, that would only be the case for a short period of time, since people are not going to extend all their posts by 2 lines of BS.

              but again, it's your word against my word.
              On my forum the ammount of spam has decreased by a lot. (all teenagers who admired postcount! ) (some even started to post longer posts with opinions etc.)

              And yes, it's very possible that my forum can't be compared with Apolyton. Though on the contrary, I have one example where the StarCount system works fine. You don't have other examples. You reason from a gut-feeling.

              @Nikolai: that's what I just try to say, I think the work for the mods will decrease and the amount of spam will decrease. PostCount spam is easy, StarCount spam is not easy. And spammers go for the easy way, not for the complex way. And I think that Solver can't see that simply because he's not a spammer himself.

              I doesn't mind to write an additional 3 lines per post. But he forgets that all his posts actually do have content and are for that reason easier to expand. And he forgets that he doesn't need to expand his posts since he already does post good posts, even to get a high Starcount.
              Formerly known as "CyberShy"
              Carpe Diem tamen Memento Mori

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              • #67
                CS,

                We appreciate you taking the time to make this suggestion and if you have more ideas on how to make Apolyton better we will gladly seriously consider any and all ideas you are willing to share with us. However, in this particular case we do not think your suggestion is one that is beneficial to Apolyton, not because we're conservative and 'hate change' but because a cost-benefit analysis based on logical arguments simply doesn't yield favourable results:

                - We do not consider the perceived problem (low quality of forum posts) to be a major issue: generally speaking we feel the quality of our forum content is already very high and any exceptions to this rule are being dealt with (whether publicly or privately) adequately under the existing system.

                - We do not feel that your proposed solution is an effective one: we do not share your view that there is any correlation between post length and post quality. Moreover, we certainly do not want to encourage people to make their posts longer than they need to be, this is a waste of everyone's time.

                - We estimate that to implement, maintain and enforce the changes you suggest would take a significant amount of time and manpower, something we already have in short supply and would rather spend on other things.

                - Your idea does not seem to have any wider support in our community.

                We can argue until the end of time about this but this discussion mostly consists of rehashing the same arguments over and over again. Unless you or someone else can present compelling new arguments to support your idea that are powerful enough to overcome our current objections we will not implement this idea. It might work in other communities but in our view it doesn't work for us.
                Administrator of WePlayCiv -- Civ5 Info Centre | Forum | Gallery

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                • #68
                  Well yep, that sums it up. I also believe that the system might be effective on certain other forums - just not here. Locutus's outline of reasons is good, besides, this is indeed one of those rare cases when there seems to be no support from the other community members.
                  Solver, WePlayCiv Co-Administrator
                  Contact: solver-at-weplayciv-dot-com
                  I can kill you whenever I please... but not today. - The Cigarette Smoking Man

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                  • #69
                    Originally posted by CyberShy
                    And yes, it's very possible that my forum can't be compared with Apolyton. Though on the contrary, I have one example where the StarCount system works fine. You don't have other examples. You reason from a gut-feeling.
                    That gut feeling is backed up by our knowledge and experiences... I don't need to actually "jump off a cliff" to know that it is probably a bad idea
                    Keep on Civin'
                    RIP rah, Tony Bogey & Baron O

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                    • #70
                      Still, please try it
                      "I realise I hold the key to freedom,
                      I cannot let my life be ruled by threads" The Web Frogs
                      Middle East!

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                      • #71
                        I am beginning to think CyberShy is just trolling and is secretly laughing at all these unnecessarily detailed counterarguments to what is so obviously a bad idea.

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                        • #72
                          No, I think there are some +s to CyberShy's claims. Taken into account usual lenght of Ming's or MarkG's posts, they are going to get hardly any stars. That's nice.
                          "I realise I hold the key to freedom,
                          I cannot let my life be ruled by threads" The Web Frogs
                          Middle East!

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                          • #73
                            Originally posted by CyberShy
                            These guys (Heresson, joncha) would've lost much StarCount with the spamposts above. They would most probably not have bothered to post because of that, which would've kept this thread spam-free.
                            My post was a comment on the idiocy of your idea, not spam. Under you system, Pekka would have more stars than anyone.

                            brevity
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                            ~ If Tehben spits eggs at you, jump on them and throw them back. ~ Eventis ~ Eventis Dungeons & Dragons 6th Age Campaign: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4: (Unspeakable) Horror on the Hill ~

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                            • #74
                              Thanks for appreciating my time, Locotus.
                              And Ming, since Apolyton is going down hill a little bit lately I wonder if your 'gut' is so good. (I don't like that either, I'm a polytubie, I'm not posting anywhere else)

                              I do not doubt your gut-feelings regarding cliffs and jumping etc. I do start to doubt it a little bit if we talk on issues like "How do we keep a forum alive in 2006".
                              I try to renew my forum all the time. I need to do that to keep the people interested. If there's no change, there's no interest.

                              Poly has been standing still for years. Nothing really big has changed. I'm trying to give positive criticism here. Oh, and the StarCount system isn't the big change we're looking for either. I understand that. But I think that the 'gut' of you guys isn't as good as it used to be. You guys are all grown up civ-players who have connections with the companies, etc. You are in good contact with your suppliers but you're losing contact with your target, the audience.

                              And in that context I see that the polystaff sables down a new idea, quick and with unsatisfying arguments. Oh well, maybe my StarCount system sucks indeed But even if it does, that still doesn't make your gut perfect :P

                              I say all of the above not to yell or insult, I say it because I hope poly will be the #1 again.
                              Formerly known as "CyberShy"
                              Carpe Diem tamen Memento Mori

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                              • #75
                                Originally posted by Solver
                                Locutus's outline of reasons is good, besides, this is indeed one of those rare cases when there seems to be no support from the other community members.
                                Have you ever wondered why?
                                Because the people who visit this forum are looking for +1's and nothing else. They can spam here.
                                And the spammers don't like the idea because it fights their spam.

                                Their gut tells them that it's not good for them.
                                Ever considered that?
                                Formerly known as "CyberShy"
                                Carpe Diem tamen Memento Mori

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