Voiceofra is banned

21 points

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Dec 23, 2015

I've gotten sufficient evidence from support that voiceofra has been doing retributive downvoting. I've banned them without prior notice because I'm not giving them more chances to downvote.

I'm thinking of something like not letting anyone give more than 5 downvotes/week for content which is more than a month old. The numbers and the time period are tentative-- this isn't my ideal rule. This is probably technically possible. However, my impression is that highly specific rules like that are an invitation to gaming the rules.

I would rather just make spiteful down-voting impossible (or maybe make it expensive) rather than trying to find out who's doing it. Admittedly, putting up barriers to downvoting for past comments doesn't solve the problem of people who down-vote everything, but at least people who downvote current material are easier to notice.

Any thoughts about technical solutions to excessive down-voting of past material?

21 points

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16 points

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Nancy, I support Scott's (Yvain's) approach. Just say you are a dictator and ban at a whim (or perhaps ban "virtue-ethically" rather than "deontologically" -- "we don't want your type around here.") Publishing rules just invites people to bend them.

16 points

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13 points

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Just say you are a dictator and ban at a whim

There is a slight problem in that LW is not Nancy's personal blog to be shaped by her whims.

13 points

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20 points

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Voting for a new CEO is dramatically more effective than the board trying to micromanage the current CEO with rules. Find a reasonable person and let them be flexibly reasonable.

20 points

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11 points

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That only works if there is a mechanism for getting rid of CEOs who abuse their power. See comment above. Also note, that the victims of said abuse are generally not in a position to defend themselves.

11 points

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6 points

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In Eliezer's post about gardens dying through pacifism, he says that in online gardens, you should either trust he moderators, or garden. A place where moderators get really worried about who to moderate is a place where trolls get in.

6 points

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9 points

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Someone has upvoted and downvoted a lot of comments in this thread using this account. I have manually reverted them. Please don't vote using this account.

9 points

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skeptical_lurker

9 points

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Any guesses on what his next handle will be? I'm thinking CthuluWillEatYourBabies.

9 points

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9 points

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Any thoughts about technical solutions to excessive down-voting of past material?

Stack Overflow attempts to discover and reverse serial voting with a script that runs daily. It seems likely we can do a similar thing.

9 points

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6 points

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Stack Overflow attempts to discover and reverse serial voting with a script that runs daily. It seems likely we can do a similar thing.

Very much this.

Undo the problem.

I think I would just zero all the votes on any account caught doing this. If you're going to game the system, you can't play, and your prior votes get consigned to the bit bucket.

6 points

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7 points

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Nancy, thank you for the hard work you do and the tough calls you have to make. The admin's job is a lonely one, and not sufficiently appreciated. As someone who has done and is currently doing lots of admin stuff, I know that from personal experience. So thank you!

7 points

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