ChrisHallquist comments on A few remarks about mass-downvoting - Less Wrong

17 Post author: gjm 13 February 2014 05:06PM

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Comment author: Jiro 17 March 2014 07:58:18AM *  1 point [-]

The past 80+ comments from me have all had at least one downvote. There is no reasonable way to interpret this other than as having a stalker.

And the solution to how not to catch false positives is to use some common sense. You're never going to have an automated algorithm that can detect every instance of abuse, but even an instance that is not detectable by automatic means can be detectable if someone with sufficient database access takes a look when it is pointed out to them.

Comment author: ChrisHallquist 17 March 2014 08:51:55PM -2 points [-]

And the solution to how not to catch false positives is to use some common sense. You're never going to have an aytomated algorithm that can detect every instance of abuse, but even an instance that is not detectable by automatic means can be detectable if someone with sufficient database access takes a look when it is pointed out to them.

Right on. The solution to karma abuse isn't some sophisticated algorithm. It's extremely simple database queries, in plain english along the lines of "return list of downvotes by user A, and who was downvoted," "return downvotes on posts/comments by user B, and who cast the vote," and "return lists of downvotes by user A on user B."

Comment author: Vaniver 17 March 2014 09:16:39PM *  0 points [-]

It's extremely simple database queries, in plain english along the lines of "return list of downvotes by user A, and who was downvoted," "return downvotes on posts/comments by user B, and who cast the vote," and "return lists of downvotes by user A on user B."

And then what will you do with that data? If you find that GrumpyCat666 cast most of the downvotes, does that mean that GrumpyCat666 is a karmassassin, or that GrumpyCat666 is one of the gardeners?

(I can't find the link now, but early on there was a coded rule to prevent everyone from downvoting more than their total karma. This prevented a user whose name I don't recall, who had downvoted about some massive fraction of all the comments the site had received, from downvoting any more comments, but this was seen as not helpful for the site, since that person was making the junk less visible.)

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