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Topic ClosedTrolls scare a band from PA
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Guldbamsen View Drop Down
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Points: 23104 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 12 2012 at 16:18
Is this perhaps something best discussed elsewhere, or is it in PA's interest to be as transparent about the matter as possible?
I am not being sarcastic - this is a genuine question.
“The Guide says there is an art to flying or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”

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Points: 37575 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 12 2012 at 16:17
Originally posted by NotAProghead NotAProghead wrote:

Again, why not to arrest everybody in the street? It would make it harder for the criminals to do their job. Wink
We should only arrest the drama queens... Tongue
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Points: 37575 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 12 2012 at 16:15
Originally posted by NotAProghead NotAProghead wrote:

I say it again - separating reviews and ratings will not necessarily solve the problem.

Imagine, there is some album nobody cares to review (not a rare thing at all), but a bunch of "blue meanies" gives it their 1-star ratings. And what?

While proposed feature makes the rating system more confusing and breaks (in my opinion) some fundamental PA principles.
It won't make the problem worse and that is worth the risk IMO. If the blue meanies give an album their 1-star ratings then so what? They're doing that now and we cannot stop them. We can always delete the abusing ratings if the disparity between rating-only and review-only averages is too great.
 
I don't see what principles are being broken - expecting people to post something on the forum breaks PA principles because it mean that they have to be able to post in English and that's not only against the ethos behind having ratings-only, it is unfair on people who cannot write in English.
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Points: 7862 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 12 2012 at 16:14
Again, why not to arrest everybody in the street? It would make it harder for the criminals to do their job. Wink
Who are you and who am I to say we know the reason why... (D. Gilmour)
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Points: 16913 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 12 2012 at 16:08
It would make it harder for the trolls.  They could still be dealt with, but would be less frequent.  And it breaks no PA principles imo.  This is a reviews site first and foremost, much more important than fly by night ratings.  
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Points: 7862 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 12 2012 at 16:02
I say it again - separating reviews and ratings will not necessarily solve the problem.

Imagine, there is some album nobody cares to review (not a rare thing at all), but a bunch of "blue meanies" gives it their 1-star ratings. And what?

While proposed feature makes the rating system more confusing and breaks (in my opinion) some fundamental PA principles.
Who are you and who am I to say we know the reason why... (D. Gilmour)
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Points: 16913 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 12 2012 at 15:45
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

The ratings-only should be subject to a seperate counting-system with its own chart and not be used to calculate the average ratings or main chart postition. This will allow the rating abusers to play at their hearts content without upsetting anyone and give a more accurate reflection of an albums popularity rather than a band or genre's unpopularity.


I support this.  Even if the affect on the ratings is quite small, as you have already demonstrated in the past, the fact is that these constant manipulations have a damaging effect on perception of the site. 

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Points: 3069 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 12 2012 at 15:39
Originally posted by Life Line Project Life Line Project wrote:

We can discuss about this a long time, but I still regret M@x didn't reply and Iván wasn't taken seriously.
This is what Iván responded after we left PA: "your retirement gave me weapons to delete some of the trolls".
Trolls were removed after Iván started this thread.....
 
Max is the webmaster and owner of PA, but issues like these are normally handled by the appointed admins. Max simply can´t answer all PMs send directly to him in a timely manner. You seem disappointed by his answer/his blind acceptance of your request to delete your band, but Max isn´t the right person to contact for help with things like this. Had you contacted an admin, a discussion about the request would most likely have taken place in the admin zone and admin action might have been taken against the trolls.
 
...this is not necessarily a matter of course and most people might not know this, but it´s the admins who know what´s going on, on the site. Max has a much more superficial knowledge of what goes on in the forum and with ratings and reviews.
 
...I hope you´ll reconsider and let Ivan add your band again. Don´t let the damn trolls win...
 
...as Dean said earlier, the admins will take action if they discover blatant abuse. Sometimes it´s hard to prove that it´s abuse, but as you can see Dean is a very thorough admin, and had this been reported to the right persons, there might have been a good chance that this situation could have been solved to your satisfaction.
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Points: 7862 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 12 2012 at 15:36
^ I think some number of posts in the forum is enough to see whether the person is adequate or not. No need to make people write reviews if they can't or don't want to.
Who are you and who am I to say we know the reason why... (D. Gilmour)
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Points: 793 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 12 2012 at 15:17
Originally posted by NotAProghead NotAProghead wrote:




Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

The ratings-only should be subject to a seperate counting-system with its own chart and not be used to calculate the average ratings or main chart postition. This will allow the rating abusers to play at their hearts content without upsetting anyone and give a more accurate reflection of an albums popularity rather than a band or genre's unpopularity.

I don't think it's a good decision. There could be some rating abusers, but most people give honest ratings. It's like if police would arrest everybody because some criminals are around. 
We already have much more than necessary reviews of popular albums, I always say hundreds of reviews of some albums is a crazy thing. 
We'll solve one problem and get a number of poorly written reviews instead.
And let's not forget, ratings without reviews is the only way to give their opinion for people who don't feel they can write good reviews or think that their English is poor for this. Why do we need to separate these people?
Please leave the system as it is! 




Totally agree. I say that once new accounts are created, there should be something stopping them from rating albums at first. Maybe they have to write a certain amount of reviews first, or make at least 15 forum posts, etc.
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Points: 7862 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 12 2012 at 14:55
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

The ratings-only should be subject to a seperate counting-system with its own chart and not be used to calculate the average ratings or main chart postition. This will allow the rating abusers to play at their hearts content without upsetting anyone and give a more accurate reflection of an albums popularity rather than a band or genre's unpopularity.
I don't think it's a good decision. There could be some rating abusers, but most people give honest ratings. It's like if police would arrest everybody because some criminals are around. 
We already have much more than necessary reviews of popular albums, I always say hundreds of reviews of some albums is a crazy thing. 
We'll solve one problem and get a number of poorly written reviews instead.

And let's not forget, ratings without reviews is the only way to give their opinion for people who don't feel they can write good reviews or think that their English is poor for this. Why do we need to separate these people?

Please leave the system as it is! 




Edited by NotAProghead - November 12 2012 at 14:59
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Points: 14258 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 12 2012 at 14:38
Originally posted by Ivan_Melgar_M Ivan_Melgar_M wrote:

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

The ratings-only should be subject to a seperate counting-system with its own chart and not be used to calculate the average ratings or main chart postition. This will allow the rating abusers to play at their hearts content without upsetting anyone and give a more accurate reflection of an albums popularity rather than a band or genre's unpopularity.

That's something we asked a long time ago..Bravo Dean.


A troll would have to write a 200 words review to mess with ratings, and that would limit it, being that it takes time.

Iván


That would be great to see ratings have no effectBig smile

I wonder if albums would then jump back or forward when those ratings are rejigged to have no effect.... InterestingSleepy
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Points: 5319 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 12 2012 at 14:16
A troll will always find a way to be a troll.
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Points: 19535 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 12 2012 at 13:58
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

The ratings-only should be subject to a seperate counting-system with its own chart and not be used to calculate the average ratings or main chart postition. This will allow the rating abusers to play at their hearts content without upsetting anyone and give a more accurate reflection of an albums popularity rather than a band or genre's unpopularity.

That's something we asked a long time ago..Bravo Dean.


A troll would have to write a 200 words review to mess with ratings, and that would limit it, being that it takes time.

Iván
            
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Points: 37575 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 12 2012 at 13:38
The ratings-only should be subject to a seperate counting-system with its own chart and not be used to calculate the average ratings or main chart postition. This will allow the rating abusers to play at their hearts content without upsetting anyone and give a more accurate reflection of an albums popularity rather than a band or genre's unpopularity.
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Points: 4828 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 12 2012 at 13:21
Hopefully the protocol with problematic issues could be enforced yet more clearer to people involved.
I'm sorry to hear people hurt their feelings with manipulated ratings, they can be fixed.
I believe some patience is however needed with reply times and if the musicians believe to the thing they are doing, esay detectable one-star mickey-mouse trollings could be tolerated until deleted.

I wish peace to you all and hope the spores of positive interaction will bloom later. Ying Yang
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Points: 14258 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 12 2012 at 12:10
It saddens me that a bunch of bogus raters resulted in a band removing themselves. If this band read this thread can they please reconsider as we value them highly; it is what makes this site great, the fact that bands can be discovered. Now sadly many will never have that privilege.

I noticed the bogus ratings merely because some bands asked me for advice as to what can be done. I pointed them to the admins and it appears they contacted them as I can do nothing but complain and wait for an admin to take action. In another thread I did bring to some admins attention and at least it was discussed.

When Dean deleted all the bogus ratings I was relieved as were the bands, that at least someone did something to fix the problem.

I am with others here that we should get rid of that lazybutt ratngs system, It should be a review and rating at least so you can see some legitimacy in the rating.  I dont even bother to look at the ratings as they mean absolutely nothing.They are virtually useless and can be abused and too often are.

Just my thoughts. 


Edited by AtomicCrimsonRush - November 12 2012 at 12:12
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Points: 37575 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 11 2012 at 19:48
Originally posted by Atavachron Atavachron wrote:

Originally posted by Life Line Project Life Line Project wrote:

I sent M@x a long mail (in French) reporting this problem on October 18, but he never sent a reply!! Last Wednesday I finally decided to leave PA and contacted M@x again.
The only response I got the next day is: "Will do right now. Done. Sorry about that.
So it took you a few tries but you finally got results and received a very thoughtful email back from M@x apologizing and immediately fixing the problem.  I'd be pleased.

David, Eric asked for his band to be removed from the PA, and that's what Max did - that's not fixing the problem.
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Points: 19535 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 11 2012 at 19:13
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

Hi Eric,
 
I deleted the bogus ratings and I regret to say that it was not in response to this thread or as a result of you removing your band from the archive, if I had been made aware of the problem sooner I may have acted sooner. If Iván informed another Admin of this probem I am not aware of it, unfortunately I missed the thread where he posted the two names that concerned him, but he never mentioned anything of your plight.
 
The process of removing the bogus ratings began a day or two before this thread was started in another thread and was instigated by members of other bands raising this issue. 
 
I do not remove ratings without strong evidence - I will not remove a member's ratings just because he gives 1-star and 5-star ratings, some people are naturally very polarised in their rating, that in itself is not evidence of abuse of the system. Yesterday I managed to collect enough good evidence that one or two people were using multiple accounts to post bogus ratings for me to act and promptly deleted them and suspended the fake accounts. The "troll" responsible returned twice yesterday and hit us again with 100s of bogus ratings - I caught him both times and deleted all the ratings - I cannot give guarantees that he will not return. 
 
It is regretable that you have chosen to have your band removed from the archive, but in all honesty I have to repeat what I have said before - there is nothing I can do to stop trolls from abusing the system - that's a simple fact of life, if someone wants to be an arsehole they will be an arsehole - all I can do is remove them once I can prove they are doing wrong.
 
I hope you do reconsider and allow Iván to add you back to the PA. Unfortunately we will not be able to recover any of the reviews your albums may have had - those are lost forever.

Luckily I have the bio, the photos, and at least all my reviews backuped

That's something I learned as a lawyer....Always backup Wink

Oops, I don't have the bio, but that can be done again, 

Iván


Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - November 11 2012 at 19:34
            
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Points: 65266 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 11 2012 at 19:13
Originally posted by Life Line Project Life Line Project wrote:

I sent M@x a long mail (in French) reporting this problem on October 18, but he never sent a reply!! Last Wednesday I finally decided to leave PA and contacted M@x again.
The only response I got the next day is: "Will do right now. Done. Sorry about that.
So it took you a few tries but you finally got results and received a very thoughtful email back from M@x apologizing and immediately fixing the problem.  I'd be pleased.
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