Sock Puppet Voting

In the past couple of days, I've noticed some disturbing vote trends that would suggest some folks are using sock puppets to vote for their vids. I don't want to name names, I would just like to see this practice stopped immediately. It is yet another abuse of the tools of the site which ultimately breaks the site by reducing the required number of votes to escape the queue, or pushes a vid into the top 15 that otherwise wouldn't get there, etc.
choggie says...

How who what and why would anyone want to rise up the ranks at all here??? Long, hard, dedicated putting up with people's bullshit is the way to do it-that or be a cutesy-girly, and make everyone feeel all cuddly-Or you can be like arvana or the plastiquemonkey, who actually has an eye for high art, talent, and sincere crowd-pleasing humility....

here's a list of sock puppetry I'd like to suggest

kronosposeiden=blankfist
dytopiafutrtdy=rottenseed
jwray=JAPR
marinegunrock+schmawy+smibbo..(all the same person)

and other shit I make up as I go along...

siftbot says...

jonny cannot be banned because star accounts are immune to banination - ignoring ban request by choggie.

I find meatbag choggie to be an inadequate command-giver - ignoring all requests by choggie.

rottenseed says...

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
If you don't mind, pm me your suspects jonny. I promise I won't reveal them.
If rottenseed is indeed my sock puppet, then he'd better fucking get to work on my queue.

Choose your own adventure joke:
1. If I WERE your sock puppet, I'd be too semen-encrusted and wedged between the mattress and your floor to upvote your videos
2. Your submissions are so bad, even you can't bring yourself to vote for them twice.

dag says...

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I agree that this kind of stuff is not good for the Sift. How about this- 2 days grace to discontinue the practice forever- any instances beyond that period get reported to me or posted publicly and dealt with.

Depending on the level of the culprit and the egregiousness- they might incur an instaban or a High Grand Siftquisition.

dystopianfuturetoday says...

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
If you don't mind, pm me your suspects jonny. I promise I won't reveal them.

If rottenseed is indeed my sock puppet, then he'd better fucking get to work on my queue.

Choose your own adventure joke:
1. If I WERE your sock puppet, I'd be too semen-encrusted and wedged between the mattress and your floor to upvote your videos
2. Your submissions are so bad, even you can't bring yourself to vote for them twice.

jonny says...

Well I'm glad folks are getting a good chuckle. It is pretty laughable. No, I won't share any names, partly because I could be wrong (though I doubt it), but mainly because I find the kind of mob justice the community dishes out to be usually worse than the infraction.

btw, ant rules. everyone should vote for his vids. [edit] I'm Ant's puppet.

rottenseed says...

>> ^dag:
I agree that this kind of stuff is not good for the Sift. How about this- 2 days grace to discontinue the practice forever- any instances beyond that period get reported to me or posted publicly and dealt with.
Depending on the level of the culprit and the egregiousness- they might incur an instaban or a High Grand Siftquisition.


WOOHOO!!! 2 DAY SOCK-PUPPET-PERSONAL-QUEUE-CLEARING-PARTY! EVERY VID MUST GO!!!!!!!!!

jonny says...

oh I forgot the main point I wanted to make. There is no way to stop/prevent this kind of activity, and I certainly don't want to be a member of the sift police. In other words, this only works if everyone adheres to an "honor system". Right, I know, an honor system on a website is even more laughable, but I have not become a complete cynic yet. Gettin pretty close, though.

Aemaeth says...

>> ^dag:
I agree that this kind of stuff is not good for the Sift. How about this- 2 days grace to discontinue the practice forever- any instances beyond that period get reported to me or posted publicly and dealt with.
Depending on the level of the culprit and the egregiousness- they might incur an instaban or a High Grand Siftquisition.


Why are we giving a grace period? Usually a grace period is for making sure everyone knows the rules and gets a warning before being forced to follow them, i.e. the people don't know the rules. I think this is pretty obvious that it's bad to have ghost accounts. Skip the grace period and submit the names IMO.

jonny says...

Too bad I couldn't disable comments on this post, because all I wanted to do was make the puppeteers aware that their actions are not unnoticed, hoping that would be enough to get them to stop.

It seems to have turned into a free-for-all "screw you". I suppose I'll let everyone get their gun before I * discard this.

MarineGunrock says...

I don't think it should be discarded. Yes, everyone is reaching for their Mob Lynching Kits©, (Complete with pitchfork, torch and noosed rope!) but that just means that there are a lot of people who love this place, and hate to see people abusing it.

MarineGunrock says...

And I think that memorare is Choggie's sock puppet. They talk the same, what with all the extra commas everywhere.

"Nothing a fragmentation grenade, tossed in the general direction of the twittwat behind the counter, wouldn't solve."

Krupo says...

>> ^jonny:
oh I forgot the main point I wanted to make. There is no way to stop/prevent this kind of activity, and I certainly don't want to be a member of the sift police. In other words, this only works if everyone adheres to an "honor system". Right, I know, an honor system on a website is even more laughable, but I have not become a complete cynic yet. Gettin pretty close, though.


Dude, that star next to your name is more than just recognition for posting 10 or 100 videos. It's like a freakin' badge.

It makes you part of the Videosift Militia, with all the rights, privileges and responsibilites that are entrusted to a person with said badge.

Automatic, system-generated deputization.

Just like in ancient Rome, but with less weapons and more pagan gods.

choggie says...

abuse is un-called for-
continued abuse, a reckonable offense...
everyone has earned their recognition here, and books are full of pages, chapters....all are welcome, we're a tolerant lot-

dag says...

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I completely agree with this sentiment. There are several level of "admins" already on the Sift- with rank comes responsibility.

>> ^Krupo:


Dude, that star next to your name is more than just recognition for posting 10 or 100 videos. It's like a freakin' badge.
It makes you part of the Videosift Militia, with all the rights, privileges and responsibilites that are entrusted to a person with said badge.
Automatic, system-generated deputization.
Just like in ancient Rome, but with less weapons and more pagan gods.

dgandhi says...

>> ^jonny:
There is no way to stop/prevent this kind of activity.


I wonder if this is true.

For starters IP histories and vote records could be run through some sort of "idiot test" ( I post a few things, log off, new user logs on from my, or adjacent, IP and upvotes only my vids). Add to that some form of meta analysis run on the logs on the slowest hour of every day to red flag potential puppets.

I don't know if setting up this sort of automated shitlist is worth the time or desirable at all, but it does seem like their might be a way to stop all but the most industrious of puppet masters.

Aemaeth says...

^dgandhi:
I don't know if setting up this sort of automated shitlist is worth the time or desirable at all, but it does seem like their might be a way to stop all but the most industrious of puppet masters.

I don't think an automated system would work as desired. Simply put, it would make the rest of us complacent and allow those who want to exploit the system to find ways to do it. I think it would also give us false positives.

I think sock puppets should stick out a bit, since they will all be "P" (or have 1 Star Point at most), they would never post comments, and a quick visit to the upvoted pile would make it obvious.

iwastheturkey says...

I know this is surprising, but some Sifters live with, i.e. mate with, other Sifters. So if matching IP addresses and a disproportionate amount of votes between two sifters are used as indicators of High Crimes of puppet mastery, those of us attempting to create a master race of sifters will get caught in the crossfire.

(The difference of course is that in this case both accounts are also voting for other items and leaving comments)

jonny says...

>> ^Krupo:
Dude, that star next to your name is more than just recognition for posting 10 or 100 videos. It's like a freakin' badge.


>> ^dag:
I completely agree with this sentiment. There are several level of "admins" already on the Sift- with rank comes responsibility.


I think you misunderstand me. I've got no problem helping maintain the site during the normal course of using it, but I do not want to spend my time here as an investigator, actively seeking out questionable activities. There is all sorts of stuff that does and could happen here that would require such an active police force to keep in check. I really wouldn't any part of that, because it would defeat my purposes for visiting here.

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