Halloween Contest Off-Topic Thread 2

[NicoleZ]

People favorite stories, particularly long ones like yours, as a way of bookmarking the story to finish later. So don't assume that a favorite = 5 vote.

I know they do and at first I decided that it was indeed bookmarked for later perusal as it's as you point out quite a long story (something I have seen and noticed before). But to leave it "bookmarked" for three weeks plus? I think it's fair to conclude it is not a case of simple bookmarking as many of those also "hearted" my first story.

Or that a favorite = a vote at all. For some, it's their way of saying, "I liked it," without actually voting. Different strokes for different folks.

This is true.

 

[lovecraft68]

A favorite can also simply be a bookmark.

 

[lovecraft68]

But do you honestly believe that people with so little regard for their own time that they would go out of their way to click around just to vote down all stories of a specific author, refresh their IP in order to cast multiple votes or mobilize an army of friends and acquaintances to vote a certain way wouldn't simply register 10-20 or 30 fake accounts?

I mean, we are dealing with individuals for whom having their say like this apparently is very important. I think you overestimate the added legitimacy provided by registering. The trolls may even see it as a challenge and step it up.

Well to go way back in this thread somewhere all ah newbies are told scouries has been doing this 24/7 for years. If you look close you can see the evidence that he at least does it on his own stories, trolling is hard to prove though.

My point is its one vote per username. So the anon's who are dumping multiple bombs by resetting IP's or simply voting from different locations, now would have to take the time to create a user id for each bomb, a new name, email, password. Not every person will go that far.

End of the day the site makes it a hell of a lot easier on the bad element to just keep doing what they do.

The only way to prove what eliminating anon would do in a contest is to try it and once and for all see how it works out. But it won't happen.