Question

This new expert system isn't working very well.

The begin with, I already thought 6000 was too low of a number for Expert status to be granted, but I'm not here to complain.

The new system allowing users to get their expert powers at 6000 points, has brought this.

http://pokemondb.net/pokebase/user/Ninja

I like Ninja, he is a nice guy. But him being a nice guy, has given him about 4500 points over the last week or so, without answering hardly any questions. Or asking them. 3 Users were involved in making this happen. Top ranked users.

Some people have taken the power of SPAM UP-VOTING into their hands. And this has to stop.

We can't have a single user, be able decide that someone is going to be an expert.

Take the user NJDevil for example. He has 3958 points at the moment.

He has answered 122 questions, and asked 62 questions.

By myself, I could potentially give him 1220 + 620 = 1840 points.

Now that doesn't seem like too much, does it?

Well, if we just said he had 4000 points. That would put him at 5840. Just a few answers and questions for expert.

To make it worse, it doesn't stop there. Imagine if I had a friend. That's ANOTHER 1840 points I can reward him.

We need to find a way to potentially STOP things like Spam-up-voting. As it IS happening here in the pokebase, and it doesn't belong. A single user, or a group of two users, should NOT be able to decide who gets Expert status.

While our new Experts will do great jobs, sure. That's not how things should be.

I don't have a current solution, sadly. Although I hope that anyone who can will pitch ideas, and that you, Pokemaster, can find a good solution to fix this.

Feb 26 - 2012 - TooJosh4U / J98 / Josh / TKOR / All other kinds of crap

Comments

I like this idea. The point OF the point system is for good answers to be up-voted and best-answered, and to be down-voted  or flagged if the information is incorrect. The point of being an expert/mod is to make sure everything looks spick-and-spand. Thank you, Josh for speaking-up! :-)

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It's also just unfair on other users and a bit cheap or you could say cheating you have to earn the status of expert been given 4500points means you don't earn it much

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I should let you know this isn't a duplicate. Trachy knows, PB knows, Mew knows, and Hex knows who has been doing this. DT as well.

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What someone's spam voting anyway I forgot to mention ninja congrats on expert wether you earned it or not you will do a good job

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Thanks Blob.

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Just move it back to 10,000.

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10,000 that will take ages for people and to be fair anyone over 6000 on the site is well worthy of expert IMO

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You say that coming from someone who didn't waste tons of their time getting to 10K points for expert. So shut it Blob.

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10,000 was the original, and Blob keep getting Spam voted at your rate and you will be there soon.

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Maybe going back to having Pokemaster hand pick the experts? Or maybe have it not about Points but Number of answers or number of answers chosen as best or something of that nature.

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Pokemaster hand picking experts and point range being around 10K sounds good. Just like the old system.

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Also, whoever down-voted this. Grow a pair and comment why.

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Jeez, only 6000?! Was this new cap put into effect when I was away? Didn't I get to 6000 within my first three months on-site?

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I think your answer is yes @ Will.

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I don't really understand what is going on with Ninja or something, but what has he done wrong?
He seems like a really nice user; but whatever I don't understand it.
But I di agree with the point you guys are making with voting up things for users just because they "deserve" an Expert status?
Things should be voted up if they are good answers, and nothing but that.

And when the heck did you change your username again Josh?

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I'll answer your questions for ya, Sam.

1. Ninja had friends spam up-vote him by 4500 points, making him reach expert status. While I'm not sure if he asked for it, or if they just decided to do it and tell him about it. He can comment with that part of the story there.

2. Looks like you had a few typos, it hurts my eyes too much :P
Although yes, when a small group of people can decide that a user deserves expert status and then can just spam them up to it, there is a problem there.

3. Not too long ago, my magical " user name must change every few months " powers took over my mind again :P

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Im gonna point out something because I can see the hidden comments.

Hex: I am deeply sorry.

Mike: I wasnt trying to direct attention off me, I was trying to add who knew and also were part of the problem. I was meant to be included through my answer. Im very sorry.




Everyone else: I am very very sorry for deceiving you all.


I shouldnt have let this happen, its all my fault. So I thought I would give my apologies.

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PB and Mew, you have caused more help than harm. I'm pretty sure everybody would agree to that. Hell, I'm pretty sure the trouble caused by me in all my time on this site is far greater than the two of you combined, even if I was apparently a smaller part in this than I had thought. People make mistakes. Your mistakes were caused by good intentions. And now we learn.

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Well, this news doesn't affect me much at all, but I must say, PLEASE NO ONE LEAVE THE SITE! You guys were only doing it out of friendship, and to think, one person can actually make a person expert! So, hopefully know that we've cleaned the air, everything will return to normal.

P.S. I can't wait until April Fools Day! XD

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Haha yeah, sorry Josh I just re-read what I had typed and I'm not even sure what I said either anymore; but wow I couldn't imagine stuff like this to ever occur.
Will Ninja's friends just un- upvote them unless they feel like it is actually a good answer with no bias?

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I already removed all my unusual upvotes.

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I did too.

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I finished removing, can you guys check to see if you actually removed all of the votes? Because he should be lower than he currently is. I think you missed some Mew, since we were doing it on the same time.

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How about there's a limit to the amount of up-votes you can give a single user. Forever.

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That is an absolutely horrible idea. Answers will keep showing up all the time. There shouldn't be a limit.

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Thats more than I have -_-

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Don't comment on a conversation that has ended.

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Ayan March 1 is like a day after Febuary 28 and this was months ago. You just commented on a coversation that has ended saying not to xD

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Clearly, you do not understand humor xD.

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Which is ironic because you are the funniest guy here xD

Answer 1

Solutions to prevent similar situations.

I think that the whole thing should be dropped, the spam up-voters are sorry and that is all that really matters, everyone makes mistakes. Instead of compiling a list of people to blame lets compile a list of solutions to the problem :)

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Raise the Expert bar back to 10,000

This one is a pretty good idea but it will not stop people from spam upvoting, it may even encourage them to do it for even more points. Maybe doing this idea and keeping careful watch on users point growth and keeping the people who are currently experts as experts. This way we know for sure that users have earned the position. We should not just give expert status for users who have only been around for a few months, 10,000 points means that most of the users on the site know this person and have a basic sense of their personality and trust them.

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Going back to the experts being Pokemaster's hand picked users

This would be a good idea, but less people would become experts, though that is not so bad as we do not really need a ton of experts. This would mean they would be around for a long time and have earned Pokemaster's trust like WILL, and I did instead of it being mainly based around points, someone could be good at Pokemon but not be a nice person and not deserve to be an expert.

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Having it given to those who have given a certain amount of correct answers or Best answers

This way only the best and the most frequently online people become experts. Though it may be a bit harder for Pokemaster to program. This should be at least 200 correct answers if not more so as too get a good understanding of whether or not they are worthy of the title.

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These are from Mew: since I don't want to clog up the question with more answers:

Limit the amount of votes that a user can give per day.

Let's say: a user can only give 15 votes IN TOTAL for the entire day.

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This one is not that great, but whatever:

Only allow Pokemaster and Mods to see how many points each user has.

What I mean is, for anyone under the rank of Mod, they will get no access to how many points each user has. Every other user will still get access to the user list, just with ranks instead of points.

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Last one from Mew: Make a page for who gained the most upvotes for the day and how many they received.

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If anyone has anymore suggestions please comment. Remember being an expert is not supposed to be a goal to just get for respect or being able to boast about it. It comes with the duty of helping Pokemaster to make this the best Pokemon site ever.

Comments

" someone could be good at Pokemon but not be a nice person and not deserve to be an expert. " Please tell me this isn't reffing to me.

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I don't think he means any of the current experts/editors/mods. I think he is more referring to something that I always wondered about with the system, what we would do if someone completely unworthy of the title of expert yet still gaining the points needed.

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Oh no Josh I was not referring to anyone. It was entirely hypothetical.

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I agree with Pokemaster being the one to choose experts.

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I like that last suggestion Mew. It would not only help with this but would also be good recognition of a user for having a good question/answer that day.

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Also, not to discredit the other contents of this answer, but my vote up was at the 10K point experts and Pokemaster hand picking them as well.

Answer 2

Enough of this. I prefer not to have infighting among the top brass.

I'll take full blame for this mess. I voted up plenty of both Ninja and Hex answers.

I felt both Ninja and Hex deserving of being experts. So what I did was do two things.

1. I upvoted them worth 500 points about each.
2. I gave them best answers for questions that did not have any best answer and that they answered best (also other people got BA along the way when they didn't answer best or in most cases first.)

Of course, the second one is fully within my right as a Moderator to do and is actually one of my jobs.

The first one however I was not justified enough in my actions. My only justification is that normally I only upvote for creativity of a very high level, instead of just being correct and answering all of the question in a fashion that can easily be understood. So I let the dam break loose and voted up answers of the second variety for two users who I thought to be great and creative users who are also very responsible and are regular users.

In my opinion they are deserving of those points gained. However, I will undo the upvotes.

Neither asked me for this.

Comments

That's very brave trachy c:

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Trachy. I think that I'm involved in it too.

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Thanks trachy, this means alot to me.

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Also I think Pokemaster and the Mods should pick the Experts. No limits and people have no reason to spam vote others.

Answer 3

I also take blame to this, being the major Spam Upvoter giving about 200 Upvotes to Ninja and about 10 to Hex. I recognize that this was an error to do, but if you know me well, You know I don't break promises at all, And I indeed promised Ninja that I will get him to Expert.

Although I will inform you all, I'll be removing my votes from Ninja in approximately 2 days, but not from Hex because I still believe He deserves to be Expert. Don't ask me why I did this exactly, because You will get No Answer at all.

What I did was simple, Upvote the User Each day by a major amount and I took advantage of my week off to get this done, though it was easily noticeable.

Here is my side of the Story that caused this. It was a typical Night on the DB, and Shadow Leaves after his raiding of Chat. Ninja was talking about dreaming to become Expert and all. After a brief silence, Mew and I made a promise to Ninja, To get him to Expert, and we all agreed. I never forgot about this task at all, and since I wanted to get this done, I took advantage of having a vacation to finish this, and it was very noticable. I also helped in the affair with Hex, but a mysterious Person also upvoted. And with the Mew affair, I was also involved but a mysterious person spammed him to Expert(forgot who it was). So whoever spammed Mew, fess up now.

I believe I was a major part of this mess, and I apologize. I think I will be leaving the DB with Mew after the Weather Tournament is over and I remove Ninja's votes. I think I have done enough damage to the DB to stay, and it has gotten boring IMO.

If I were Pokemaster, I would ban myself for causing havoc and hand Pick Experts. I also believe that Spam Downvoting is an issue and I know Users who do this to piss Members off. PM can easily check who you guys are as well, so fess up. I will be leaving in 2-4 days if the Tournament doesn't keep moving. I think I have caused the DB enough damage honestly.

Thanks for reading.

Comments

Oh btw my list was including me I thought I made that clear in my answer. Josh you and I had a long conversation on skype about this issue. Im sorry.

Answer 4

Well, it not fair that everyone else take to the blame. If everyone is going confess, screw this, I’m going t confess to about this.

Oh yea, trachy? I am so not letting you taking the full blame. You did what you did for very good reasons.

And also, I’m going to recall this from the best of my memory, so mistakes can be made.

On New Year’s Eve, the former spamming Shadow (not the new one) was on the DB Chat, spamming, and made offensive posts on the Pokebase, Meta, and the Battle Subway sections. Although I could edit those posts on the Battle Subway and Meta, I couldn’t do anything on the Pokebase. Nothing. So when people asked me to edit, I couldn’t. I said I didn’t have enough votes. Ninja graciously went and gave me the upvotes I needed to become an Expert, so I then edited the posts in the Pokebase. Then, Me, PB, and Ninja made a promise to get Ninja to be an Expert. I forgot about this for a while, but someone (who will remain anonymous) reminded me. So very recently, I gave Ninja about 600 points on Pokebase. This brought him (I think) to about 5,800.

Also, you may have seen Ninja’s post: “Mew was apparently also spam upvoted.”

On New Year’s Eve, when Pokemaster announced the new Expert limit was 6,000, I was psyched. PB then upvoted me. Then, some mysterious person (that neither or PB knew about) spammed me like crazy, giving me about 300 more points. This brought me to 6,000. I then told PB to remove all his votes that he had given me.

Another incident was with Josh. On the Battle Subway, I upvoted him from 900 to about 1,000. He gave me 6-8 upvoted to get me to 270.

What I just stated above IS COMPLETELY MY FAULT. DO NOT BLAME PB OR JOSH. DO NOT.

I’m sorry to everyone. Especially Hex and PB. One thing I always do is exaggerate. Too many times have I done that. I will quit.

I’ll know there’s a big possibility of me being banned. I know, and I deserve it. I’ll take FULL responsibility.

If I don’t get banned (which is unlikely) I’ll be taking a break from Pokebase, Meta, and Battle Subway. I’ll even consider taking a month off from this site. I may also consider leaving the site.

Thank you for reading.

Comments

Mew dont leave, you shouldn't be banned either. This is my fault.

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You wont get banned Mew many have done worse and were not, as long as you are sorry that is all that matters.

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Forgot about the BS thing. 100 points seems little for me in there xD