Modern Vespa

Lifer has made the point, repeatedly and vociferously, that the karma system invites abuse. He actually went farther, saying it could be manipulated, which I rejected as unlikely.

Well, I was wrong. Lifer, apparently to prove his point, has been picking threads at random and thumbs-downing every single post, no matter how innocuous. I don't believe this was in any way aimed at a particular individual, although a few individuals suffered more just by being present in a thread.

I've resisted putting more restrictions on the rating system, believing that people are essentially good and that minor attempts at manipulating the system would be lost in the noise. Lifer, intent on proving his point, succeeded in proving me wrong. His relentless negative ratings started to outweigh the "normal" ratings, those made in good faith.

Which is a nice segue to my point, the one that I've made all along. Specifically, that we would notice such abuse and respond to it.

Here's my response:
- Lifer is now unable to make any further ratings.
- All of the ratings Lifer has made will be removed.
- I'll seriously consider more restrictions on how many ratings any given user can make in an arbitrary period of time, to the detriment of all the users who have been using it in good faith.

Thanks for making your point, Lifer. Because you know, I didn't have anything better to do than to clean up after you so that you could claim the moral high ground. Victory is yours, hollow though it may be.

I've asked you before, and now I must insist: please leave. You are no longer welcome here.

That's pretty lame. And also highly atypical usage patterns.

And, vociferously is a fun word to say. But not type.

Bummer.

It's just a forum. It's like a toolbox... you use what you need, and if you don't need or like a particular tool, then just ignore it. Like the rating system. It's a shame some people can get so worked up about something so trivial. But it takes all kinds, right?

Thanks again Jess, for putting up with all of us and keeping the forum alive.

Dang!
Sounds like you're doing too much work here

I'd suggest just adding it to the guidelines that deliberately messing with the karma system can get you banned
and then ban folks who deliberately misuse the system

You're the boss

I don't mind doing work when it helps people. I sit in front of the computer for hours and hours at a time, responding to posts, writing code, trying to improve the system and improve the state of modern Vespa scooters. I don't mind doing those things, I give my time freely for the benefit of others.

Needless to say, that doesn't extend to cleaning up messes. I'm fairly angry that someone -- someone we ostensibly know -- is abusing the rating system just to show that the rating system is wrong.

Frankly, I'm really pissed. I spend far too much time here trying to make things better to simply shrug when some jackass decides to pull a stunt just to prove a point.

Jess - I am sorry to hear about all of this drama. Since joining, I have found the forum very useful and a great source of information. Thank you for the time and effort you put in.

i am just gonna play the devil's advocate... if you would have said that there IS a possiblity of abusing the system do you think he would have done the deed anyway? Sometimes agreeing on something that seems trivial is better that having to do what you are doing now.

Sorry! I meant that you shouldn't waste more time than necessary
trying to prevent fools from deliberately misusing your system

I would definitely prefer that you kept working to improve MV
It's a great board and it keeps getting better
(Love that Rides section!)

Jess, Just wanted ot add my voice of support. Thx for all the hard work. Don't let one bad apple bring you down. Thx.
Miguel

Keep up the good work, and don't let the bastards get you down!

Lifer proved that if you make a system fool proof, they will simply make a better fool.

Jess-

Hang in there. An oft cited maxim in the military is "Less than 1% of the troops are the cause of more than 95% of the problems you will have to handle." Such is the human condition. Puerile behavior is going to occur whether we all want it or not. I would offer this corollary to "Accident looking for a place to happen" - there are, indeed, people who are "adolescents looking for a playground".

Al

Good Job Jess and Mods. Thanks for letting us be guest in your fourm. good work on the clean up

That's some serious weaksauce.... Sorry you had to waste time cleaning up puke.

The irony is that what kicked him in the ass is the very thing he messed with: karma

I like the "jackass" comment.

+1

As Lifer had been such a jackass, I'm sure it will take Jess a lot of work to clean up the damage that has been done to the Karma system. Work that I am sure that he could have done without.

His abuse of the system must have been very clear to any of the moderators. As stated in Jess's original posting about Karma "Instant Karma is gonna get you!"

[New Feature] Instant Karma is gonna get you!

And it did.

Sorry, you have reached your maximum Upload Quota Limit of 40 MB
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
An odd message, where does it say there is a limit?

An odd message indeed.

Uhhh.... right there, where it says you've reached your maximum?

Jess,

Hang in there and maybe some of these problems will go away.

Thanks for all you do and I still owe you that beer. If I am in the City, we can hook up or if you get to Sac, I'll make good on the offer.

I noticed this many times and wondered who was responsible. I reported it a couple of times to the mods but they both said that they couldn't see who gave Karma scores to whom! I wasn't aware that you could. Of course, I should have known better.

Really unkind Lifer and so very petty!

Jess, I am really sorry. I thought nothing was being done about this and when I noticed what was going on, I followed behind giving all those with a thumbs down (where it very obviously was not deserved) a thumbs up to even the score. I realize that was the wrong thing to do and I do apologize. I thought I was helping.

I can't believe someone would spend their time deliberately trying to mess with the very people who have spent their time trying to help this guy! Hopefully he will take the not so subtle hint and leave.

What a mean spirited asshat ... to use a favourite term here!

The irony of Karma is it's irony. It is a doubled edged sword. Do good, get good. Screw with the bull, you get the horns.

Jess, you run a hell of a show here, and you probably do more in one day than most of us would be willing to do in a month. Thanks for everything.

^agree

Because I do not care for the Karma system, I choose not to participate in the the thumbs up or down.

I like all the comments and ideas, whether I agree with them or not.

If you do not like the Karma system, simply ignore it and do not participate.

That way you can stay and post and read and enjoy.

It is nice to be given the option NOT to participate in something you don't care for! That is important too!

Basically, mentally turn the channel off on the Karma if you don't care for it. It is a pretty simple fix.

Jess, please change your title from petty tyrant to benevolent dictator. And thanks

At first I didn't think much of the karma thing. But I try to post helpful information for other riders. When the targets appeared it let me know that I must be helping, and I found it motivational to continue helping others.

Thanks for maintaining this awesome reference site.

I should probably clarify. I've given some statistical analysis tools to the mods that show various metrics -- who has the highest and lowest karma, highest and lowest bias, and some other metrics that are a lot more specific. These tools are primarily geared around detecting the extremes, such as when abuse is happening. For instance, there's one to indicate which users are rating other specific users the most, in order to detect grudge-rating or a user with a ghost account rating themselves.

If a user's behavior isn't in the extreme in any particular way, their name probably won't show up on those lists. Even if they do, there's only so much detail available. For instance, there's no way for the mods to look at a given post and see who rated it.

There is, however, the MySQL database, which I of course have access to. It's a pain in the butt, but I can craft an SQL query to look at the data in pretty much any way imaginable. I'm not actually very fluent in SQL, though, so it's fairly difficult and I only bother when I really need data before acting, such as this case. It was clear Lifer was at the very extreme edge of behavior, and the question was: is it abuse, or is he just expressing an unusually high level of disapproval? When I saw that it was every single post in a thread, consecutively, it was obviously abuse.

Jess

I want to jump on the Thanking you band wagon. As a new scooter and new Vespa owner this site has been a great resource and not only made me more informed about this wonderful word but a safer rider as well.

Thank you

Like Inkstick, I am both new to this forum and new to the Vespa experience. I have to consider all of this to be a great blessing in my life. I have found lots of useful information, a few funny stories, great pictures and ideas for projects on my new scooter. Thanks to all! Bummer that Lifer caused all the extra work, but without folks like Jess and the other mods, we'd have none of this.
+1 on the suggestion to become the Benevolent Dictator, I don't think petty fits...

I think I got way more credit than was due since I haven't been on the board except once in about 10 days

I know that the board was being manipulated because I too saw the stupid thumbs down for an initial post or a thumbs down for a great post

I tried to tell you that people were doing this... but it wasn't me that was doing all the ratings. I was just the messager that the system was being abused.

Please try to find a better excuse than "Lifer did it"

Because Lifer didn't do it.

I am in fact th first person to try to bring it to your attention that the system was being abused.

Start a poll if I should stay or go... I'll honor it

Somehow or other I think the Karma system might do that instead....

If you're seeing a colored (red or green) thumb, it means that you made that rating. You can't see the ratings indication from other people, just the "neutral" or "positive" or "negative" summary. Okay, I'll amend: your account is being used to make an excessive amount of ratings. Are you trying to tell me that you're not in control of your account? As far as I know, Lifer did it.

But log files don't lie, better make sure someone else doesn't have your access info. If I were you I would change my password.

Wayne B

Jess,

Is there a possibility that someone hacked his account and has been using it to screw with the karma system?

Hacked? Probably not. Accessed, either through carelessness or something else entirely on his end? Sure. And there's no way for me to know that or distinguish an authorized user of his account from an unauthorized user of his account.

There are four ways to abuse the system

One is to steal a password... and mine is easy to hack. But, Jess, how would you know the password of a member? The password is coded in the php table. If I were to log in to cause trouble I would use a proxy so the IP does not show the german country code. If I know that much, and I had done it, why didn't I use a proxy?

Second, is that you hack into the php code on the server, which server logs would tell you. You have access names same as I have on my server. If you look, you won't see my name.

Third, you can attempt to give bad ratings to a person, but it wouldn't work since it is cumulative and other people would have to be involved. While I do think that there are a group of people on the board that simply do not like another group on the board, the effort would have to be coordinated... and one person simply can not make any trouble alone. So, if ratings are going down, then more than one person has to be involved. Alone, it would take serveral days to down grade one person... but even that is not possible since once rated, you can't rate again without using a fake nick.

Therein is possibility number four - Someone that has no life - have several accounts and systematically do their thing.

The short answer to the karma fear is that no one poster can have a beef with someone and cause their karma rating to go up or down since Jess has the safeguards in place.

Honestly... I am extremely busy - one reason I haven't been on the board... and I really don't have time to play these games.

I'm sorry it happened to you.. looks like you have a bit of a handle on it. But please excuse me while I take care real world problems

In the meanwhile, I think I will change my password

Ban me if you feel it is justified

Don't worry about me... I won't post unless I have a technical question and won't / can't (supposidly) use the karma system

Pretty much a time waster - this thread

I don't know the passwords of users. As you said, they are hashed. I couldn't find one even if I wanted to. If a password were stolen, it would have to be on your end. If it was guessed, or if someone used your computer without your knowledge, then there's nothing I can do to stop them. It was your account, though. I don't have access logs that tell me specifically who did what at what times. I have standard web server logs, which could pinpoint an IP address, but ratings aren't tracked by IP address.

The only information I have is when a user was last active. And since you're active now, that information is pretty much useless.

Besides, if someone had hacked into the php code, don't you think they would do something more dramatic than give a bunch of thumbs-down ratings from a single user? This wasn't a case of excessive ratings to one person. It was an excessive amount of negative ratings across a large number of users. As I said, every post in a thread. No. This was only your account doing all the rating. I have real world problems too, which cleaning up this mess has infringed upon. A good idea. And an assessment of who has access to your computer wouldn't hurt, either. Get over your bad self. Unless I'm revealing your name or other private information that actually identifies you personally, then you've got nothing. Don't even start with me about wasting time.

Hamlet Act III, Scene 2, 222-230

http://www.litb.com/flakey.wav

DELETE *
FROM Tables
WHERE Author LIKE "Pain in the butt" OR "Jerk"