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Accounts created to mess with rep?

Craig Edwards · 2015-12-23T18:36:17

Hi all I noticed today that an informative post I'd posted got down voted. Normally I don't really look into why but in this case I was bored and clicked the profile of the down voter: http://www.gamedev.net/user/234212-wizard-of-oz/ I notice that this person has generally gone through lots of informative posts by long standing members of the community and systematically down voted them whilst he himself has never posted anything. Everyone is entitled to their opinion of course but where does the site stand on things like this? Smells a bit fishy to me like someone creating a second account to adjust rep. It doesn't matter to me that a few people lose points here and there just that the wrong impression is being given that good answers aren't good as they then have -1 or 0 rep. Of course I didn't just hit "report" on the profile as I'm not sure about this which is why I'm posting here. If I'm wrong please correct me. What is everyone else's thought on this?

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Started by Brain December 22, 2015 12:27 AM

11 comments, last by Brain 8 years, 6 months ago

grumpyOldDude

2,776

December 23, 2015 12:29 PM

Because reputation doesn't really do anything, and just because someone doesn't post doesn't mean that they can't accurately judge the value of a post.

It does do something in a sense. Otherwise let gamedev scrap reputation then. Reputation could roughly (note, just roughly) allow you to judge the competence (on technical subjects) of the poster. What of a new user who is very competent but has 101 points. Surely within short time they would build their rep.

And provided the bar to start voting voting up/down is not too high (probably something like 3 to 4 post or 160 rep) then it would have negligible negative effect but effectively be able to filter off accounts created for the sake of downvoting/upvoting

can't help being grumpy...

Just need to let some steam out, so my head doesn't explode...

BHXSpecter

3,123

December 23, 2015 03:53 PM

Like I said, the reputation is just a number and really doesn't mean anything; not even about a person's competence. A new user gets 101 (100 for registration and 1 for login), but you get a point for doing upvotes, lose a point for downvotes, get 3 points for having a comment upvoted, get points every 5 pictures in Screenshot Showdown, get a point for login, get 100 points for approved articles, 5 points for reporting threads, etc. I've got my points mostly from Showdowns, upvotes, ;logins, and people liking my comments, but I would not consider myself competent in game development as I'm just a hobbyist. Using the reputation as a measure of a person's competence is potentially dangerous; for example, anything I say should be vetted and double checked, but my rep of 2279 (at the time of writing this) would imply some form of competence that simply isn't there.

Brain

19,059

Author

December 23, 2015 06:36 PM

would imply some form of competence that simply isn't there.

I would say that if you've even got anywhere near finishing a game of any kind you sell yourself short by saying you aren't competent. Many people come here with hopes and dreams of making the next massively multiplayer call of clash of duty... And leave somewhere between pong and tetris...

The 2000+ rep points you have are somewhat a reflection of your experience, as those who aren't experienced don't stay around long enough to gain rep.

What's more important is the score of any one individual post, as that reflects the validity of the answer rather than the popularity of the poster, at least in my opinion.

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