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A new idea about the rating system


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#1 TheFountain

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Posted 12 August 2011 - 03:43 AM


The rating system, the way it is currently designed is pretty childish. People are misusing it, and giving negative rating to specific users because they have a vendetta against them. How can you give negative rating to opinions? Everyone has one. Maybe the rating system should be altered to where you can't give negative ratings unless you explain them. Like, when you hit the - icon it takes you to a window that says 'please explain your reason for this rating'. I think that is an excellent idea.
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#2 chris w

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Posted 13 August 2011 - 01:59 PM

Like, when you hit the - icon it takes you to a window that says 'please explain your reason for this rating'.


Count me in on this.
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#3 niner

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Posted 13 August 2011 - 02:29 PM

Like, when you hit the - icon it takes you to a window that says 'please explain your reason for this rating'.

Count me in on this.

While giving reasons for ratings is potentially useful, even if the person doing the rating has a 'vendetta', all they have to do is write "post is childish/vindictive/ad hom/stupid/wrong/annoying..."; I don't see how this would stand in the way of a 'vendetta'. I would like it if the software gave us the ability to change our ratings. I've accidentally hit the wrong button more than once, and changed my mind about a rating more than once, but have no way to correct these things. To give you an indication of the profound lack of judgment of IPB, the company that wrote the forum software, they shipped it allowing people to rate their own posts. We turned that off, eventually.
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#4 chris w

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Posted 13 August 2011 - 03:15 PM

While giving reasons for ratings is potentially useful, even if the person doing the rating has a 'vendetta', all they have to do is write "post is childish/vindictive/ad hom/stupid/wrong/annoying..."; I don't see how this would stand in the way of a 'vendetta'.


Perhaps you're right, but still I think that if the vendetter (I just made that up) had to write something like this each and every time, that would stop at least some of them, because they themselves would know the reasons given are insufficient in the eyes of by-standers. They might get away with it a couple of times but not too long until they are widely recognised for what they are - waging an outright vendetta :-D .

Or, like in some other forums, it could just be made visible who and how exactly voted for a particular post.

I don't feel like the voting system is getting abused all that much, but anonimity ussually breeds irresponsibility.


I would like it if the software gave us the ability to change our ratings. I've accidentally hit the wrong button more than once, and changed my mind about a rating more than once, but have no way to correct these things.


True.
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#5 niner

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Posted 13 August 2011 - 07:08 PM

While giving reasons for ratings is potentially useful, even if the person doing the rating has a 'vendetta', all they have to do is write "post is childish/vindictive/ad hom/stupid/wrong/annoying..."; I don't see how this would stand in the way of a 'vendetta'.

Perhaps you're right, but still I think that if the vendetter (I just made that up) had to write something like this each and every time, that would stop at least some of them, because they themselves would know the reasons given are insufficient in the eyes of by-standers. They might get away with it a couple of times but not too long until they are widely recognised for what they are - waging an outright vendetta :-D .

Or, like in some other forums, it could just be made visible who and how exactly voted for a particular post.

I don't feel like the voting system is getting abused all that much, but anonimity ussually breeds irresponsibility.

I don't think it's getting abused either. Anonymity is a mixed bag; it can bring people to say things that they wouldn't say in RL, but like the secret ballot that is central to most democracies, it allows you to be honest without fear of retaliation. Because there are no words associated with an up or down vote, there's no possibility of an ad hom attack. We're all limited to only one vote per post, and a limited number of votes per day, so the amount of damage any one person can do is small. If someone was casting 'vendetta' votes, like voting down a perfectly good post, any of us could up-vote the post just to correct the record. Likewise if someone has up-voted a post that didn't deserve it. That could be the result of someone having a bunch of sock puppet logins voting themselves up. I've done this sort of 'correcting of the record' in both directions more than once; anyone can do it.
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#6 TheFountain

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Posted 14 August 2011 - 02:31 AM

I strongly feel that peoples opinions should be out in the open when it comes to the negative ratings people give. A negative rating expresses an opinion in a cowardly fashion. And it allows certain uses the ability to basically discharge any amount of arbitrary negative ratings they want on any user they want to without explanation or accountability. In short and in theory it allows non-stop lack of credible ratings. Additionally, if another user feels differently about a certain subject and votes another users opinion down, their vendetta partner could simply de-rate it, thus protecting their rating, while the other user still suffers from unfair negative ratings constantly. Democracy is not suppose to be about whose side you are on. Everyones voice is suppose to be heard, even if said voices are in the minority.
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#7 TheFountain

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Posted 14 August 2011 - 02:39 AM

Additionally I have a strong feeling that certain users have more than one account, which would inherently give them an upper hand in the rating system, if you get my meaning. Their alternate account could de-rate their negatives, etc.

Edited by TheFountain, 14 August 2011 - 02:41 AM.


#8 caliban

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Posted 14 August 2011 - 09:06 PM

Ratings are not anonymous. They can be traced by leadership. If you have a suspicion that someone is 'abusing' the system, please alert a moderator.

Its an easy matter to not make ratings public. We have decided against that to allow for unencumbered honesty, but if Members prefer traceability we can certainly look at changing things.
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#9 TheFountain

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Posted 14 August 2011 - 11:42 PM

Ratings are not anonymous. They can be traced by leadership. If you have a suspicion that someone is 'abusing' the system, please alert a moderator.

Its an easy matter to not make ratings public. We have decided against that to allow for unencumbered honesty, but if Members prefer traceability we can certainly look at changing things.


Traceability would definitely be preferable to the current system. It would even show us whether or not a moderator is one of the people who has a vendetta. Which could reveal a negative aspect on the part of our leadership. This could also show us whether or not a moderator is de-rating certain ratings as to take away the power rating from certain individuals. I have a suspicion that, if any of the moderators are the people with the vendetta, they might be misusing the trace option and de-rating every negative given by specific users, specifically on opinions that do not tally with their views, which to me translates to abuse of said privilege. I personally think moderators should not have the ability to trace if nobody else can. It's an all or nothing scenario really.

Edited by TheFountain, 14 August 2011 - 11:49 PM.


#10 niner

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Posted 15 August 2011 - 02:44 AM

I personally think moderators should not have the ability to trace if nobody else can. It's an all or nothing scenario really.

I didn't think that moderators could trace ratings. I thought only admins could do that. If moderators can do it, I don't know how.

#11 TheFountain

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Posted 18 August 2011 - 04:07 AM

Here are some user names that I have a suspicion are misusing the rating system out of a vendetta and basically rating down almost everything I say, regardless of what it is.

Forever21
niner
Jll
mikeeinnapes

A few of the other paleo elite.

I'm pretty sure that if the moderators traced some of my negatives they would see a consistent pattern featuring these users and a couple other paleocentrics who cannot handle opposing research.

Edited by TheFountain, 18 August 2011 - 04:10 AM.


#12 Skötkonung

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Posted 19 August 2011 - 05:37 PM

I rarely use the rating system, it is rather pointless in my opinion. Since it has very little real world implications, it does not act as a deterrent. People will still spam the forums. People will still be rude or harshly express opinions. People will still disagree with each other. And that is okay. That's just how it works on the interweb!

Edit:
Maybe we could just copy Facebook and only allow a "+1" feature. No negative.

Edited by Skötkonung, 19 August 2011 - 05:40 PM.

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#13 niner

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Posted 19 August 2011 - 05:54 PM

opposing research.

omg.
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#14 Forever21

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Posted 19 August 2011 - 06:13 PM

Caliban, could you please reveal the name of the guy who negative voted TheFountain on this page and the guy who gave me the positive vote? TheFountain and I are both sure of something. He is sure it is me. I am sure it is not me. And even if its not me, he thinks its by my decoy. But I am confident that the person who voted negative/positive on this page is a well known poster. I just think its helpful to clear this up because he made some very strong accusations against me on the second page and on this thread and its quite offensive and uncalled for.

#15 niner

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Posted 19 August 2011 - 06:56 PM

Caliban, could you please reveal the name of the guy who negative voted TheFountain on this page and the guy who gave me the positive vote? TheFountain and I are both sure of something. He is sure it is me. I am sure it is not me. And even if its not me, he thinks its by my decoy. But I am confident that the person who voted negative/positive on this page is a well known poster. I just think its helpful to clear this up because he made some very strong accusations against me on the second page and on this thread and its quite offensive and uncalled for.

If you're talking about this post, where TheFountain said "I didn't ask you." in response to your comment, I'm the one who gave that a negative vote. That is the mildest way I could have responded to such churlishness. The next step up would have been a warning, then a temporary ban, then a permanent ban. I also voted on your post, though to be honest, I don't remember whether it was up or down. It currently has a plus 1. If it had been negative, I would have voted it up. If it was neutral, I would have left it alone. It's a fine and dandy post, certainly not deserving of a negative, but also not rising to the level where I would have said wow, what a great contribution! I must vote it up! If it had been positive when I first saw it, I would have left it that way. That's the best I can manage to reconstruct things; hope it's ok, and maybe now TheFountain can take you off his 'enemies list'.
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#16 Forever21

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Posted 19 August 2011 - 07:17 PM

Thanks niner.

My personal take on this issue is a feature that combines Facebook and Youtube voting system.

You can vote ('like') a post. Your name is added to the list of others who also 'liked' the post.

You can 'thumbs down' a post. If 3-5 posters 'thumbed down' a post, it gets 'folded' so it doesn't appear. If readers want to see the post, they'll have to click the link "show me" and it will open the unpopular post. If the post gets more than 5 'thumbs down', it will eventually get removed or marked as spam.

My attitude on this whole voting system is not that of a cry baby ("wtf?! who neg-voted me??!!!?") instead, I look at myself, my post, and I see if there's something I could improve on next time. Maybe I should consider the other side of the argument, maybe I should read/study more, or maybe I should work on improving the value of my posts in the future. That way, I contribute in improving the quality of this community.

Edited by Forever21, 19 August 2011 - 07:24 PM.


#17 TheFountain

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Posted 19 August 2011 - 10:53 PM

Caliban, could you please reveal the name of the guy who negative voted TheFountain on this page and the guy who gave me the positive vote? TheFountain and I are both sure of something. He is sure it is me. I am sure it is not me. And even if its not me, he thinks its by my decoy. But I am confident that the person who voted negative/positive on this page is a well known poster. I just think its helpful to clear this up because he made some very strong accusations against me on the second page and on this thread and its quite offensive and uncalled for.

If you're talking about this post, where TheFountain said "I didn't ask you." in response to your comment, I'm the one who gave that a negative vote. That is the mildest way I could have responded to such churlishness. The next step up would have been a warning, then a temporary ban, then a permanent ban. I also voted on your post, though to be honest, I don't remember whether it was up or down. It currently has a plus 1. If it had been negative, I would have voted it up. If it was neutral, I would have left it alone. It's a fine and dandy post, certainly not deserving of a negative, but also not rising to the level where I would have said wow, what a great contribution! I must vote it up! If it had been positive when I first saw it, I would have left it that way. That's the best I can manage to reconstruct things; hope it's ok, and maybe now TheFountain can take you off his 'enemies list'.


You know, I am really getting sick and tired of you abusing your authority. A Ban for what? being equally as snarky as you and a few other users? But of course because the other snarky users share your view of dietary 'science' it is okay to ban me.

Please remove niner as a moderator. He does not deserve this position, because he is not being impartial at all with it. And I am fed up with being targeted by this person. I have been temporarily banned for doing the EXACT same thing other users have done here countless times. And they get ZERO bans. I am sick of it. It's complete non-sense. I say remove any and all moderators who cannot be truly impartial.

#18 TheFountain

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Posted 19 August 2011 - 10:59 PM

Maybe I should consider the other side of the argument, maybe I should read/study more, or maybe I should work on improving the value of my posts in the future. That way, I contribute in improving the quality of this community.


Or maybe the person who gave you the negative should explain why, or be made to explain why.

Some posts, which consist of OPINIONS shouldn't be allowed to be given ANY rating at all in my OPINION.

Either way, I am sick of the bias of this forum. It is getting old fast. People who think they have all the answers to every single question posed. That kind of arrogance in a scientific community is really pathetic.

And I am getting sick of the elitism with regard to dietary science here. You have a cross section of people who will just constantly vote you down regardless of the validity of what you post, if it is against their dogmatic dietary perspectives.

1-Please either remove or modify the rating system to make it more fail safe, and less stupid.

2-Please remove all moderators who abuse their authority. People of authority should be IMPARTIAL.

Thank you.

#19 TheFountain

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Posted 19 August 2011 - 11:21 PM

And by the way, I have nothing against niner at all. I just feel as if a moderator should really be impartial in order to preserve the democracy of a forum space.

To have a personal vendetta against someone of lesser authority allows them the privilege to take authoritative actions which should only be the purview of those who are responsibly impartial.

I have also consistently had my education insulted by him time and again after making it clear that I am still in school and still learning about these many intricate subjects.

Not something a student of life, science and whatever else needs to encounter in someone many years older than themselves.

#20 niner

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Posted 20 August 2011 - 02:07 AM

If you're talking about this post, where TheFountain said "I didn't ask you." in response to your comment, I'm the one who gave that a negative vote. That is the mildest way I could have responded to such churlishness. The next step up would have been a warning, then a temporary ban, then a permanent ban.

You know, I am really getting sick and tired of you abusing your authority. A Ban for what? being equally as snarky as you and a few other users? But of course because the other snarky users share your view of dietary 'science' it is okay to ban me.

Please remove niner as a moderator. He does not deserve this position, because he is not being impartial at all with it. And I am fed up with being targeted by this person. I have been temporarily banned for doing the EXACT same thing other users have done here countless times. And they get ZERO bans. I am sick of it. It's complete non-sense. I say remove any and all moderators who cannot be truly impartial.

You aren't the first one to get sick and tired of me... Read my post again. I'm not threatening to ban you for one rude comment; that would be completely out of proportion. Your claim that I have a 'vendetta' against you doesn't hold water. I checked your warn log just now. You have four warns from four different moderators. My only entry in the log is removing one of your warns. For someone who thinks that multiple people have vendettas against him, you sure have a lot of points! In fact, it seems like just the other day you had 15 or 20 points, and now you suddenly have a hundred and eighty something? Wow, my vendetta is clearly failing. You wouldn't be running a dozen sock puppet accounts, would you? Because that would be a violation of our bylaws and would be cause for a ban.

#21 Forever21

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Posted 20 August 2011 - 02:12 AM

I most certainly hope that niner is neg-voting posts. It saves people a lot of time from reading junk. If you see a busy thread, lots of posts, who has the time to read all that? Wouldn't it be nice if there's a feature that lets you read only the good stuff and saves your the trouble and time of reading junk? Well now there is. But this feature is useless if no one would neg-vote. But one has to READ the post to neg-vote it. I don't want to volunteer for that position. Who's got the time? So many people to see, places to be, books to read and I'm aging every minute.

So the way I see it is that niner and others do a GREAT JOB because they read the junk posts so I don't have to, and tells me which posts to avoid. So in a long busy thread with lots of posts, all I have to do is look at the votes before reading and as soon as I see the neg-vote, I go "oh okay, move right along, skip this one" and on to the next post. I think that's brilliant. I think that feature is extremely helpful and those who neg-votes are a gift to this community. They help keep it high value, high quality and saves people with important things to do a lot of time.


I nominate niner to be an Administrator.
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#22 caliban

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Posted 20 August 2011 - 01:31 PM

This thread is losing focus. I'll try to summarise.

Firstly, its not correct to assume that reputation votes are completely unimportant at LongeCity. The system is of tangible relevance.

The initial suggestion:

when you hit the - icon it takes you to a window that says 'please explain your reason for this rating'


Cannot be easily implemented technically.

The reason for this suggestion as far as I understand is the suspicion that some are misusing the system by 'getting back' at people and not voting on content.

Three remedies has been suggested:

1) alert a member of leadership if you think this is happening (i.e. if you think there is a consistent campaign going on, not one or two negative votes that you don't understand). This is the current model.

2) making reputation votes visible.
This is possible, but it has been suggested that it would inhibit frank and open voting.

3) only allow positive votes
I would need some convincing, because we would loose the capacity to 'hide' low-reputation posts. But if this creates a better atmosphere, maybe it is worth considering.
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#23 TheFountain

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Posted 20 August 2011 - 01:38 PM

If you're talking about this post, where TheFountain said "I didn't ask you." in response to your comment, I'm the one who gave that a negative vote. That is the mildest way I could have responded to such churlishness. The next step up would have been a warning, then a temporary ban, then a permanent ban.

You know, I am really getting sick and tired of you abusing your authority. A Ban for what? being equally as snarky as you and a few other users? But of course because the other snarky users share your view of dietary 'science' it is okay to ban me.

Please remove niner as a moderator. He does not deserve this position, because he is not being impartial at all with it. And I am fed up with being targeted by this person. I have been temporarily banned for doing the EXACT same thing other users have done here countless times. And they get ZERO bans. I am sick of it. It's complete non-sense. I say remove any and all moderators who cannot be truly impartial.

You aren't the first one to get sick and tired of me... Read my post again. I'm not threatening to ban you for one rude comment; that would be completely out of proportion. Your claim that I have a 'vendetta' against you doesn't hold water. I checked your warn log just now. You have four warns from four different moderators. My only entry in the log is removing one of your warns. For someone who thinks that multiple people have vendettas against him, you sure have a lot of points! In fact, it seems like just the other day you had 15 or 20 points, and now you suddenly have a hundred and eighty something? Wow, my vendetta is clearly failing. You wouldn't be running a dozen sock puppet accounts, would you? Because that would be a violation of our bylaws and would be cause for a ban.


Those warnings were given because of user complaints about my forum conduct, yet did I ever complain to a moderator once about a specific user? No, you know why? Because I am not a big baby. Plenty of people have been snarky on this board with both me and other users. Why do they never receive these warnings?

I call that completely unfair conduct on the part of the moderation team.

And as far as your theory of 'sock puppet' accounts are concerned, feel free to check the IP of the source those points came from. You will see that 1-They did not come from an IP address similar to mine and that 2-Apparently not everyone feels the same way about me, so the feeling on this board is hardly unanimous. I just think the ones with voices who opposes the majority view here tend to remain silent, for fear of banishment. Obviously I don't fear such banishment. But it's completely out of wack to be banned because one or two users complained because they provoked me and I responded to their provocations with comments that may have been somewhat deserved.

#24 Forever21

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Posted 20 August 2011 - 01:41 PM

3) only allow positive votes
I would need some convincing, because we would loose the capacity to 'hide' low-reputation posts. But if this creates a better atmosphere, maybe it is worth considering.


Neutral votes may appear / stay.

Neg-voted posts still appear but once it gets to a certain vote (3 neg votes) it gets 'folded'. (not hidden). Users can still read that post but they have to click "Show This Post" to unfold the post.

Only if the post got so much negative votes that it gets hidden or marked as spam.

This is how Youtube handles the 'unwanted' comments on their pages.

#25 TheFountain

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Posted 20 August 2011 - 01:47 PM

This thread is losing focus. I'll try to summarise.

Firstly, its not correct to assume that reputation votes are completely unimportant at LongeCity. The system is of tangible relevance.


I disagree completely.


What ends up happening is one or two members could completely ruin your so called 'reputation' by continuously voting down posts based on having a vendetta against you while the other 99.9% of the members remain silent, regardless of whether they agree with you or not on certain subjects.

How is this representative of anything but personal distaste and the tendency for certain users to abuse the system whilst other's (who might actually represent you better) remain quiet lurkers in the background?

I think we are under the mistaken notion that people take the rating system seriously, as evidenced by how nonchalantly people just press the - button on everything certain users say.

It is a very bad system that represents the views of a minority. Yes, a minority of maybe 3-5 raters vs the other 99% who do not use it, or who may have a tendency not vote for specific posts or any posts at all.

In short, the rating system represents nothing but minority opinions. I agree 100% with skot on this.
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#26 niner

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Posted 20 August 2011 - 02:11 PM

If you're talking about this post, where TheFountain said "I didn't ask you." in response to your comment, I'm the one who gave that a negative vote. That is the mildest way I could have responded to such churlishness. The next step up would have been a warning, then a temporary ban, then a permanent ban.

You know, I am really getting sick and tired of you abusing your authority. A Ban for what? being equally as snarky as you and a few other users? But of course because the other snarky users share your view of dietary 'science' it is okay to ban me.

Please remove niner as a moderator. He does not deserve this position, because he is not being impartial at all with it. And I am fed up with being targeted by this person. I have been temporarily banned for doing the EXACT same thing other users have done here countless times. And they get ZERO bans. I am sick of it. It's complete non-sense. I say remove any and all moderators who cannot be truly impartial.

You aren't the first one to get sick and tired of me... Read my post again. I'm not threatening to ban you for one rude comment; that would be completely out of proportion. Your claim that I have a 'vendetta' against you doesn't hold water. I checked your warn log just now. You have four warns from four different moderators. My only entry in the log is removing one of your warns. For someone who thinks that multiple people have vendettas against him, you sure have a lot of points! In fact, it seems like just the other day you had 15 or 20 points, and now you suddenly have a hundred and eighty something? Wow, my vendetta is clearly failing. You wouldn't be running a dozen sock puppet accounts, would you? Because that would be a violation of our bylaws and would be cause for a ban.

Those warnings were given because of user complaints about my forum conduct, yet did I ever complain to a moderator once about a specific user? No, you know why? Because I am not a big baby. Plenty of people have been snarky on this board with both me and other users. Why do they never receive these warnings?

I call that completely unfair conduct on the part of the moderation team.

And as far as your theory of 'sock puppet' accounts are concerned, feel free to check the IP of the source those points came from. You will see that 1-They did not come from an IP address similar to mine and that 2-Apparently not everyone feels the same way about me, so the feeling on this board is hardly unanimous. I just think the ones with voices who opposes the majority view here tend to remain silent, for fear of banishment. Obviously I don't fear such banishment. But it's completely out of wack to be banned because one or two users complained because they provoked me and I responded to their provocations with comments that may have been somewhat deserved.

The job of the moderation team is to maintain an environment here that is conducive to our goals and is pleasant and decent for the user community. Generally speaking, the warnings that anyone, you included, have gotten have been based on the judgement of the moderator. The fact that multiple moderators have weighed in on your case suggests that 1) there is no 'vendetta', and 2) your behavior has consistently violated our norms, mostly in the past. I think for the most part, you've turned over a new leaf. You are certainly not the only person who has been warned about anti-social behavior. Warns are relatively common.

With the help of an admin, I have looked at your reputation history to evaluate your vendetta complaint and my sock puppet concern. I'm happy to report that you are not abusing the system with sock puppet accounts, and I apologize for my suspicion. Early in the year, your point total was deeply negative, but you really have turned things around and have gotten a lot of positive votes. I congratulate you for this; it's a good thing. I see no evidence of a 'vendetta' in the logs; in fact, everyone that you suspect of a vendetta has given you both negative and positive votes. If there was a real vendetta, I don't think they'd be giving you positive votes.

Regarding your feeling that votes are only given by a small minority of users, that's not the case. You have been voted on by a large number of users. A lot of people use the system. With 192 points as of this writing, you have a lot more points than most people.

Edited by niner, 20 August 2011 - 02:22 PM.


#27 TheFountain

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Posted 20 August 2011 - 10:13 PM

If you're talking about this post, where TheFountain said "I didn't ask you." in response to your comment, I'm the one who gave that a negative vote. That is the mildest way I could have responded to such churlishness. The next step up would have been a warning, then a temporary ban, then a permanent ban.

You know, I am really getting sick and tired of you abusing your authority. A Ban for what? being equally as snarky as you and a few other users? But of course because the other snarky users share your view of dietary 'science' it is okay to ban me.

Please remove niner as a moderator. He does not deserve this position, because he is not being impartial at all with it. And I am fed up with being targeted by this person. I have been temporarily banned for doing the EXACT same thing other users have done here countless times. And they get ZERO bans. I am sick of it. It's complete non-sense. I say remove any and all moderators who cannot be truly impartial.

You aren't the first one to get sick and tired of me... Read my post again. I'm not threatening to ban you for one rude comment; that would be completely out of proportion. Your claim that I have a 'vendetta' against you doesn't hold water. I checked your warn log just now. You have four warns from four different moderators. My only entry in the log is removing one of your warns. For someone who thinks that multiple people have vendettas against him, you sure have a lot of points! In fact, it seems like just the other day you had 15 or 20 points, and now you suddenly have a hundred and eighty something? Wow, my vendetta is clearly failing. You wouldn't be running a dozen sock puppet accounts, would you? Because that would be a violation of our bylaws and would be cause for a ban.

Those warnings were given because of user complaints about my forum conduct, yet did I ever complain to a moderator once about a specific user? No, you know why? Because I am not a big baby. Plenty of people have been snarky on this board with both me and other users. Why do they never receive these warnings?

I call that completely unfair conduct on the part of the moderation team.

And as far as your theory of 'sock puppet' accounts are concerned, feel free to check the IP of the source those points came from. You will see that 1-They did not come from an IP address similar to mine and that 2-Apparently not everyone feels the same way about me, so the feeling on this board is hardly unanimous. I just think the ones with voices who opposes the majority view here tend to remain silent, for fear of banishment. Obviously I don't fear such banishment. But it's completely out of wack to be banned because one or two users complained because they provoked me and I responded to their provocations with comments that may have been somewhat deserved.

The job of the moderation team is to maintain an environment here that is conducive to our goals and is pleasant and decent for the user community. Generally speaking, the warnings that anyone, you included, have gotten have been based on the judgement of the moderator. The fact that multiple moderators have weighed in on your case suggests that 1) there is no 'vendetta', and 2) your behavior has consistently violated our norms, mostly in the past. I think for the most part, you've turned over a new leaf. You are certainly not the only person who has been warned about anti-social behavior. Warns are relatively common.

With the help of an admin, I have looked at your reputation history to evaluate your vendetta complaint and my sock puppet concern. I'm happy to report that you are not abusing the system with sock puppet accounts, and I apologize for my suspicion. Early in the year, your point total was deeply negative, but you really have turned things around and have gotten a lot of positive votes. I congratulate you for this; it's a good thing. I see no evidence of a 'vendetta' in the logs; in fact, everyone that you suspect of a vendetta has given you both negative and positive votes. If there was a real vendetta, I don't think they'd be giving you positive votes.

Regarding your feeling that votes are only given by a small minority of users, that's not the case. You have been voted on by a large number of users. A lot of people use the system. With 192 points as of this writing, you have a lot more points than most people.


I do not know who has been voting me up, or down. I had my suspicions, but I honestly have no idea where these + votes came from. I do not mind them, and in all honesty was kind of indifferent to the rating system till recently, when it came to my attention that a few users were negative voting me for some reason. I know some of my posts are simply opinions, so that leaves me, like many other users, open to positive or negative ratings (which does and doesn't make sense in the grand scheme of things). But it just seemed like my 'opinions' were getting more negative votes than other peoples opinions, despite how little these other's would substantiate theirs.

As far as anti-social behavior goes. I feel the only type that should warrant warnings or bannings is deliberately making fun of people, which I know I have been guilty of in the past (as a reaction to being ganged up on), but this has also occurred to me countless instances, and for which these users were never warned. I don't think a more clever manner of hiding ones jabs should be permitted, just because it is not a direct insult, if in fact a certain kind of uniform civility is the goal of this forum. To maintain civil conduct the approach must be even handed. I have looked at the warn status of specific users who made indirect jabs, or ad hominem statements regarding posts of mine, and they were never warned for this conduct.

Edited by TheFountain, 20 August 2011 - 10:18 PM.


#28 TheFountain

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Posted 21 August 2011 - 09:19 AM

I most certainly hope that niner is neg-voting posts. It saves people a lot of time from reading junk. If you see a busy thread, lots of posts, who has the time to read all that? Wouldn't it be nice if there's a feature that lets you read only the good stuff and saves your the trouble and time of reading junk? Well now there is. But this feature is useless if no one would neg-vote. But one has to READ the post to neg-vote it. I don't want to volunteer for that position. Who's got the time? So many people to see, places to be, books to read and I'm aging every minute.

So the way I see it is that niner and others do a GREAT JOB because they read the junk posts so I don't have to, and tells me which posts to avoid. So in a long busy thread with lots of posts, all I have to do is look at the votes before reading and as soon as I see the neg-vote, I go "oh okay, move right along, skip this one" and on to the next post. I think that's brilliant. I think that feature is extremely helpful and those who neg-votes are a gift to this community. They help keep it high value, high quality and saves people with important things to do a lot of time.


I nominate niner to be an Administrator.


And who determines what is a 'junk post'?

You know, bias can still happen even higher up in the ranks. You proceed from a faulty assumption that the moderators always know better than everyone else.

I already made it clear that I respect niners knowledge in the sciences, but that does not mean opposing research doesn't exist. And to have someone negative vote something, even if it comes from a reputable source, just because it is opposing to the majority paleo view of the forum does a disservice to us all.

A good example of this is a science blog entry I recently shared on the nutritional forum which outlines why Gary Taubes insulinogenic theory of weight gain is dead wrong. It went all but completely ignored. As well as the video someone posted of mathiew lollondei's chemical explanations for why the majority of the claims made by paleo bloggers is, at the very least, off.

Some people just cannot handle views which rain on their parade. And that is not even the intention. The intention is the remind us all that we do not have the holy grail of dietary science in check yet. But again, I re-state, showering such posts with negatives would be a hypothetical blunder of epic proportions. And I honestly hope that most people do not have your approach, where they just mull right past anything with a negative vote, the former argument being held in mind of course.

#29 Forever21

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Posted 21 August 2011 - 10:48 AM

I also like to see the feature where the top 2 voted positive posts are placed on TOP (as shadows). This lets readers see the most valuable contributions right away instead of going through a long reading of not only bad posts but non-essential contributions.

For example, there's a thread on Leucine restriction. You'd have to scroll down the page to read the most valuable reply. It would be nice if that post has a 'ghost' version posted right on the top as first reply to the original post.

I think that feature would be very useful.

#30 Forever21

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Posted 21 August 2011 - 10:52 AM

Additional comment on negative posts. It would be good to have a feature that lets a member IGNORE a poster (hide poster's post) It will save everyone the trouble of giving negative points to someone. By ignoring a poster, no further post by that member appears OR the post of that member are "folded", one would have to click on the "Click to read" link to open that post.

Right now, if you want to ignore a poster, you'd just have to do it manually, by ignoring the guy, by just skipping / scrolling past down his post.
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