Meta-PokéBase Q&A
9 votes
957 views

I'm sorry, why are these questions upvoted?

What Are Skyla's Pokemon & Stats?
Is Training Cubchoo Worth It? (look at the BA) EDIT: the BA was changed after I posted this
What Are Drayden's Pokemon & Stats?
What are all the Gym Leaders?
How do I get the kings rock in Black2/White2?
Where to find a Poliwag/Poliwhirl and Slowpoke?
How Come Caterpie Is One Of The Pokemon That Evolve So Fast?

All of the upvotes are literally within minutes, if not seconds, of asking the questions. Usually when someone upvotes a question, it's either interesting or difficult enough to be unanswered for a few hours. Nearly none of these questions are asking questions that you couldn't find the answer for by Googling and looking at a Bulbapedia page.

By the way, notice any common denominators in all these questions?

Btw, if a mod sees my hidden post that's the same one as this one, please ignore it. I was going to wait until someone saw that and reshows it, since I accidentally clicked the hide button (again) instead of the edit button (le derp), but the questions just kept coming so I decided to make a new post.

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edited by
I was just about to point this out. +1
They look like they could be possible dupes maybe...
Ikr.This is utterly preposterous. Though they are just points, and I hate to jump to a conclusion with little proof, these seriously look like spam-upvotes on good friends. I don't believe these are dupe spam upvotes but rather spam-upvotes for the sake of being a good friend that wants points
Well, points are worthless afterall, but 6k /will/ get you Expert. If someone mass spams up votes or gets their friends to do that, then it needs to be stopped, because Experts can edit every post on this site.
Also it just clogs up the DB with unhelpful questions.
It's not just up-votes I've been countering down votes as well and have revived +4 more down votes in 4 days time.
Exactly. it doesn't necessarily mean that the mods would make him/her an expert though. However the Pokebase is the most active section and with every being able to edit there just because spammed points were received it might look messy. And as you said, it realy those clog up the Pokebase. They are questions, yes both half of them have like been asked already
I have no reference/ knowledge of down votes unless they're really obvious (like 5 on the same Q), so I can't say anything there. :O
Yeah, i've been countering stupid downvotes too.
6k points = automatically expert unless a mod decides to remove it. I remember a Q about someone hitting 6k, getting 1 downvote and their Expert rank would be removed if they drop below 6k.
Beat me to it, man,
At 6000 points you can only edit on Pokebase but you don't have the title and you can't edit on the other sections unless you have the points for that too. A mod picks the expert iirc
Really? I just remember suddenly becoming Expert with no explanation whatsoever.
Plus I'm sure that becoming Expert on the DB gives you the same privileges in the Meta & RMT sections. I don't have the points required to be "expert" in those two sections, but I can still edit stuff.
Also, @Slash: ninja'd
geodudedude upvoted people so they would upvote him back, this could be a similair situation
@fondant when you reach 6,000 you gain the ability to edit posts on the PB part of the site. So when you reach that point mods will give Expert out.(Which will allow you to edit all sections.)

BTW I was the one who alerted the mods to promote you to Expert. :3
Yes that is because you are an expert. However when you just have 6000 points you can only edit on Pokebase and if you have the point requirements on the other section. When I struck 6000 points I was still a RU and I could edit on Pokebase
I have noticed the same thing over the last few months as well. The amount of questions with upvotes have skyrocketed since about June 2013. I don't belive this is due to dupes, but rather friends who upvotes each other.
@Star & DB: ahhh I see; the rank needs to be manually approved, but the editing is automatic. Thanks. :O
@Flaf: yea it seems like it; I've noticed random questions just getting upvoted as well.
@Eevee: I know that he didn't plan in advance. He upvoted people first and then asked them to give him votes back.
http://pokemondb.net/pokebase/160996/whats-the-purpose-of-shiny-pokemon

This too. It got upvoted right after it got asked.
Wait, so this doesn't belong on the Ban Report?
*Question about questions getting upvotes has 6 upvotes* DATABASE LOGIC, WE LOVE YOU!
Flaf and Valet are right, the people who ask those questions know the people who answer as friends and have no qualms about selecting their answer than contains a single link over one that has taken 30 minutes to write out. Star also has a point about downvotes too, I've definitely received silly downvotes before (come on, three almost exactly the same answers and only mine gets a downvote is stupid) and I've seen it happen to others too.

It just seems to look like a bunch of people asking questions they know the answer to just so their friends can vote them and they can vote on and select their answers, while at the same time down vote people randomly.

It just annoys me to see people obsessing over points. Yea, it's happening for as long as I can remember, but ridiculous situations like this are, well... ridiculous.
@Hotcakes: I'm not asking for a ban considering that I'm not 100% sure it's really vote swapping? Mostly I think this is what's happening, but not entirely.

1 Answer

2 votes

I don't see any duplicate accounts from what I checked. So it's likely just people upvoting questions they personally liked.

The thing that concerned me more was bad answers getting upvoted and marked as best. As it says in the rules, a link is not an answer, and answers should have all the required detail where possible.

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I don't think that it's a simple case of people voting for questions that they liked, considering a question like "How do I get the kings rock in Black2/White2?" has 2 upvotes when the information can be easily obtained by using Google (as is the case with a few of the other questions)? Additionally, all the questions came in quick succession of each other, and the upvotes came almost immediately.

Maybe I'm just cynical though.