Sockpuppet attacks work because accounts are allowed to downvote an unlimited amount of times without ever posting anything.
Change it so that you get 1 downvote per week if you have posted a few comments, and the sockpuppeter has to automate commenting. That’s harder for them to do than it is for the good guys to ban their puppets.
In addition, use the usual tactics against bots, such as email verification and ip banlists.
I think the suggestion in the middle paragraph would hit a lot of people that we do want voting, both up and down; lurkers with good taste make the karma signals better.
I’m not convinced that lurkers’ downvotes are good for the site, but I assume that with the current state of the database this is not a question we can answer empirically?
I think the suggestion in the middle paragraph would hit a lot of people that we do want voting, both up and down; lurkers with good taste make the karma signals better.
I think on average the votes of lurkers are less valuable than the votes of participating members. If there’s an AI that identifies lurkers with good taste because they vote similar to a moderator, their votes would be valuable.
Without a way to distinguish good taste from bad taste lurkers I think it’s more useful to count people who have a higher stake in a forum more strongly.
Sockpuppet attacks work because accounts are allowed to downvote an unlimited amount of times without ever posting anything.
Change it so that you get 1 downvote per week if you have posted a few comments, and the sockpuppeter has to automate commenting. That’s harder for them to do than it is for the good guys to ban their puppets.
In addition, use the usual tactics against bots, such as email verification and ip banlists.
We do email verification already.
I think the suggestion in the middle paragraph would hit a lot of people that we do want voting, both up and down; lurkers with good taste make the karma signals better.
I’m not convinced that lurkers’ downvotes are good for the site, but I assume that with the current state of the database this is not a question we can answer empirically?
I think on average the votes of lurkers are less valuable than the votes of participating members. If there’s an AI that identifies lurkers with good taste because they vote similar to a moderator, their votes would be valuable.
Without a way to distinguish good taste from bad taste lurkers I think it’s more useful to count people who have a higher stake in a forum more strongly.