This is a really good feature. There's a lotttt of people who can't be bothered to make an account to vote.
That said, I am a bit worried it will encourage vote manipulation even more so than before without the need to make an account. My Guide has suffered from vote manipulation in the past and I wouldn't be surprised if it happens again.
Hopefully it works out though cause it's a great idea!
That said, I am a bit worried it will encourage vote manipulation even more so than before without the need to make an account. My Guide has suffered from vote manipulation in the past and I wouldn't be surprised if it happens again.
Hopefully it works out though cause it's a great idea!
I can't take back the words I never said
Nxno
<Member>
<Member>
Nemesis5451 wrote:
What if people just keep up-voting their own guides after logging out?
How are you going to keep that in check?
How are you going to keep that in check?
I think they tie votes to IP address or something, but what's stopping people with a VPN from abusing the new system is the question.
I can't take back the words I never said
Elusive Ferret wrote:
I think they tie votes to IP address or something, but what's stopping people with a VPN from abusing the new system is the question.
That is what I had in mind when I asked that question because anyone could change their IP address each time and upvote multiple times
Thank you for the sig JhoiJhoi!
@ Elusive Ferret regarding vote manipulation, all of our existing systems for preventing abuse are in place, and we have added several brand new systems targetted specifically at guest voters. We also have logging systems in place so we can watch in detail what people are doing, even when votes are denied. I'm being intentionally vague because the less detailed we are about the systems, the harder it will be for people to try and abuse them, but there is quite a lot in place now to keep it all under control. Additionally, a captcha response is required EVERY time a guest votes. All of that in combination means that if anyone really wants to "cheat", it's going to be a lot of time and effort, they won't be able to get all that far with it, and the more effective they are at it the more likely it is that we'll catch them and reverse it anyway.
Additionally, we are tracking the scores separately. Your "old" score, which is the members only vote with "comment to vote" and all that tied in, is still there untouched. Then you have a new score which is that combined with the guest votes. We track both separately. We also track a third score, which is just the highest of those two. Once we are happy with what we're seeing, we will likely be changing the site so that the rank and display score will be that third score. So if someone does try to hurt your guide, the worst they can do is cancel out the guest vote score and you'll fall back on your current member vote score. However, based on what we've seen from all our testing (we've been monitoring guest vote "attempts" for months now), and with all our protections in place, we don't think that will be a major issue. Though we will of course still be watching it very closely and tweaking/improving things as we go, and you guys are always welcome to raise any concerns to us.
Our hope is that all of our protections combined with the volume of new voters this brings in will render any attempts at vote manipulation pointless. So that an individual will not be able to cause enough harm to make it really meaningful.
@ Nemesis5451 due to our protections, yes an author can log out and upvote their guide, but only once. We could prevent this but that one single vote isn't going to really hurt anyone. If you guys think this should not be allowed, we can of course discuss it more.
Regarding VPNs, refer to my explanations above. We've always had protections in place to prevent or minimize the effectiveness of using VPNs, and we've just added several more targetted at guests. On top of that, the volume of new "organic" votes coming in should render it that much more futile.
Additionally, we are tracking the scores separately. Your "old" score, which is the members only vote with "comment to vote" and all that tied in, is still there untouched. Then you have a new score which is that combined with the guest votes. We track both separately. We also track a third score, which is just the highest of those two. Once we are happy with what we're seeing, we will likely be changing the site so that the rank and display score will be that third score. So if someone does try to hurt your guide, the worst they can do is cancel out the guest vote score and you'll fall back on your current member vote score. However, based on what we've seen from all our testing (we've been monitoring guest vote "attempts" for months now), and with all our protections in place, we don't think that will be a major issue. Though we will of course still be watching it very closely and tweaking/improving things as we go, and you guys are always welcome to raise any concerns to us.
Our hope is that all of our protections combined with the volume of new voters this brings in will render any attempts at vote manipulation pointless. So that an individual will not be able to cause enough harm to make it really meaningful.
@ Nemesis5451 due to our protections, yes an author can log out and upvote their guide, but only once. We could prevent this but that one single vote isn't going to really hurt anyone. If you guys think this should not be allowed, we can of course discuss it more.
Regarding VPNs, refer to my explanations above. We've always had protections in place to prevent or minimize the effectiveness of using VPNs, and we've just added several more targetted at guests. On top of that, the volume of new "organic" votes coming in should render it that much more futile.
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The Details
Guest votes are votes cast by MOBAFire users while not logged in. We will be tracking guest votes and member votes separately, and taking the highest score between them as your guide score. That means guest votes can't hurt you, they can only help you!
Starting tonight, we will be opening up guest voting, but only tracking it in the background for now until we have gathered enough data and put it through rigorous testing.
Once we are confident that everything is functioning properly we will apply guest votes to live guide scores. We already have vote manipulation protections in place, as well as requiring a valid capcha for every guest vote, but to be on the safe side we want to monitor it for a while before launching it fully.
Why Are We Adding Guest Voting?
We've found less and less users are logging in to cast votes as time goes on. We want guide scores to show a true reflection of the MOBAFire community's opinions, and at the moment the vast majority of the MOBAFire community uses the site while logged out.
You guys make awesome guides, and we want you to get the votes and ratings you deserve. When a person reads your guide and clicks to vote, we want you to know that someone liked your guide and gave it a thumbs up.
Having more votes also means more accurate guide scoring and ranking. It could also open up more opportunities for different types of listings and sort methods, which we would love to look into!
We're excited to open up voting to guests and get you guys more votes! As always, let us know if you have any questions or thoughts in the comments!