Sock puppet accounts

[godlameroso]

I totally agree. This place is not a place where timid and childish bullying should be allowed to take place.

I would also explain - godlameroso stated that there were users with sock puppet accounts - So, who are they?

The rear wing thread surely deserved a few downvotes though, as intractible and aggressive defence of an untenable position does give the people who choose to downvote an outlet for that.

It may be wise that as we want to see the positives - that upvotes are required to bolster a technically quality post. Downvotes might be rationed....there is no need in this technical forum for throwing tomatoes..

I've been here a while....I miss the days of Islamatron and WhiteBlue..... Some of that was harsh.

How is my position untenable, the FIA says it's legal, the video gives the appearance that it bends more than the Mercedes, and that alone isn't enough to form a solid conclusion, nothing untenable about that. Jumping to conclusions based on one video is the untenable position, it's as untenable as expecting a used Mercedes to appreciate in value.

I'm not downvoting you mate

I'm also not getting into the discussion That can stay in the thread!

Whatever is going on with the people trying to mess about with you, I, for one, think that behaviour is outrageous.

We're here as we have a shared passion/obsession with engineering and fast vehicles. It's not a random place where any pillock should be throwing weight about trying to discredit, or belittle another poster.

One thing...used Mercedes...some of them do appreciate, surely?

The original SL gullwing, hell yeah. Some of their old antique cars absolutely no doubt.

[SiLo]

Don't be shy - who?

@Godlameroso got 27 downvotes since May 11. That seems like a bit of abuse of the voting system to me.
Who? Those votes are anonymous.

I think a lot of that might have come from the rear wing flex thread where a lot of arguments were had about the validity of the flex claims. I have downvoted him once for a post that was really just inciteful and contributed nothing to the thread at all. I always make sure I explain my reasons for using the downvote button (or whatever its official name is).

As the forum expands with the popularity of the sport and Reddit users getting funnelled here, this may need someone to keep a closer eye on it.

[Hoffman900]

Don't be shy - who?

@Godlameroso got 27 downvotes since May 11. That seems like a bit of abuse of the voting system to me.
Who? Those votes are anonymous.

I think a lot of that might have come from the rear wing flex thread where a lot of arguments were had about the validity of the flex claims. I have downvoted him once for a post that was really just inciteful and contributed nothing to the thread at all. I always make sure I explain my reasons for using the downvote button (or whatever its official name is).

As the forum expands with the popularity of the sport and Reddit users getting funnelled here, this may need someone to keep a closer eye on it.

I gave him a downvote as well for the same thing. Probably the same post.

[Wouter]

Don't be shy - who?

@Godlameroso got 27 downvotes since May 11. That seems like a bit of abuse of the voting system to me.
Who? Those votes are anonymous.

I think a lot of that might have come from the rear wing flex thread where a lot of arguments were had about the validity of the flex claims. I have downvoted him once for a post that was really just inciteful and contributed nothing to the thread at all. I always make sure I explain my reasons for using the downvote button (or whatever its official name is).

As the forum expands with the popularity of the sport and Reddit users getting funnelled here, this may need someone to keep a closer eye on it.

The moderators do what they can, but it is impossible to continuously monitor all votes.

As Steven wrote, it is desirable that people report something that is incorrect.

What also options are:
A. Abolish the voting system. (Doesn't seem desirable to me.)
B. The name of the voter is automatically mentioned with every upvote and downvote.
If it is no longer anonymous to members, there will probably be much less false votes.

[RZS10]

Option B could lead to unnecessary animosity or 'retaliation' between users though, at the same time it would give the possibility to talk things out in PMs should that happen

I firmly believe that "recommendations" should also require a reason as does "rating down" and non-anonymity there would show if there's groups of users who 'boost' each other, so yeah ... it could actually improve things.

One thing...used Mercedes...some of them do appreciate, surely?

The original SL gullwing, hell yeah. Some of their old antique cars absolutely no doubt.

The new AMG One will surely rise in value the moment the first car gets delivered ... sometime in like 2031 or so

[notsofast]

What also options are:
A. Abolish the voting system. (Doesn't seem desirable to me.)
B. The name of the voter is automatically mentioned with every upvote and downvote.

C. Do not allow down votes when the current rating is zero.

The purpose of the rating system is to highlight good posts. There's no need for negative ratings.

[RZS10]

Not really though?
There's no option to filter threads by 'quality' or anything (which would be a useful feature to quickly get through threads without having to check every page), it all ultimately comes down to the user "reputation" which _should_, in theory, allow others to determine how much attention they want to give to a user's posts at a quick glance, how insightful/useful their posts were or how knowledgeable they are - with how the system is being used right now and if there were no downvotes anyone could garner a decent number of recommendations and then start exclusively trolling or posting nonsensical garbage from a certain point onwards without anyone being able to drop them in "reputation".

[notsofast]

Maybe the "reputation" should be the number of good posts instead of the total number of upvotes. If you write a good post, then that's a good post, regardless of how many upvotes it got. Some threads are more active than others. Some days of the week attract more members than other days. The number of upvotes is irrelevant as long as there is consensus that a post is a good post.

And yes, it would be nice to be able to auto-hide all posts with zero votes. It would allow me to quickly catch up on the most important information in a thread. But I know this is a volunteer site, so I'm ok without it.

[RZS10]

Dunno ... it's quite rare for posts to get more than +2 or +3 anyways and i'd say it's fine for stand out posts that sometimes give +5 or even more to add that amount of 'rep.'

And regarding auto-hiding or filtering, some informative posts don't get any upvotes and sometimes posts complaining about getting downvotes get +3, so the system in general is broken and such a feature wouldn't do much good in many threads

[nzjrs]

The votes are certainly predictive of something, can you think of a single user on -10 or less that doesn't deserve to be ignored?

I'd say the accuracy of high negative reputation is very good.

[Wouter]

The votes are certainly predictive of something, can you think of a single user on -10 or less that doesn't deserve to be ignored?

I'd say the accuracy of high negative reputation is very good.

That may be the case, but if, for example, as a McLaren fan in the Mercedes topic (or vice versa) you make a valid comment that the Mercedes fans do not like, such a person will immediately get a bunch of DVs.
Is that justified / fair? I do not think so.
By the way, this example has nothing to do with sock-puppet accounts.

[TimW]

I think you need to be quite active on the forum to be able to downvote, last time I tried I could not. So keeping up multiple sock puppet accounts for down voting seems difficult.
Avoiding endless debates without new arguments and accepting that you can be wrong is an effective way of preventing downvotes.

[SiLo]

What was the reason for starting this thread by the way? It wasn't because Godlameroso received a bunch of downvotes whilst being a tad vitriolic in a few threads was it?

I haven't seen anyone else complaining about this sort of thing, but obviously I don't know what the numbers are like for multiple accounts happening.

[coaster]

Used to have 2 accounts for my 2 emails, whenever i flamed myself in an online argument I would switch to the other for while so as not to build reputation for trolling.

[coaster]

This forum has had a few big names visit incognito, Tony Matthews and Geogio Piola foremost in my mind. They proved themselves with twitter feeds or photo galleries that only they could get access to.
My point is these guys and various other contributors should be given status and priority, let them start threads only they and other contributors can post and discuss and maybe a side thread for all of us to discuss and not cloud the contributors with 'static' blah blah or bickering.
BrianG wrote some amazing articles, a vip treatment affording them not to be trolled, they are welcomed, protected and engcouraged to contribute.
It would be cool to get some real f1 staff brought in this way.