[matmat]

inquiry, on 2011-June-15, 11:17, said:

Today a post was made in the general forums that should have been posted in the yellow only forum. This thread has been moved to the correct forum by board administrators and it is no longer visible to the vast majority of the users. And yes, to the few who read that forum, bbo nicknames are used in that subforum, for obvious reasons. This is not a violation of the rules or a double standard. The yellow forum is for that specific purpose.

The secret files!
Do we have access to the spy agency's reports on ourselves?

[sallyally]

This comes under the category of things I would rather not know about.

[inquiry]

matmat, on 2011-June-15, 11:26, said:

The secret files!
Do we have access to the spy agency's reports on ourselves?

No.

It really isn't a spy report ---- the stuff there is pretty much like was accidentally posted publically earlier today. If you have ever been suspended from the BBO gaming site for some period of time, or been given a warning by a yellow for doing something on the gaming site that you should not, the odds are fairly high your name is in there somewhere with a short description describing why it is being posted in that forum. On the other hand, if you have never been issued a warning or been banned from the gaming site, the odds are EXTREMELY high that your bbo nickname is nowhere in there. So everyone should already have a good idea if their own nickname is mentioned in that forum, and if so, why.

[matmat]

inquiry, on 2011-June-15, 13:04, said:

No.

It really isn't a spy report ---- the stuff there is pretty much like was accidentally posted publically earlier today. If you have ever been suspended from the BBO gaming site for some period of time, or been given a warning by a yellow for doing something on the gaming site that you should not, the odds are fairly high your name is in there somewhere with a short description describing why it is being posted in that forum. On the other hand, if you have never been issued a warning or been banned from the gaming site, the odds are EXTREMELY high that your bbo nickname is nowhere in there. So everyone should already have a good idea if their own nickname is mentioned in that forum, and if so, why.

time to file a FOIA request!

[barmar]

Where's Daniel Ellsworth when we need him?

[babalu1997]

matmat, on 2011-June-15, 11:26, said:

The secret files!
Do we have access to the spy agency's reports on ourselves?

you will have to wait for wikileaks: the bbo cables

[Rain]

Thanks for the warnings about username - bhatnagara, created just to spam links. Banned and deleted posts, hope nobody was affected by viruses.

[Rain]

One forum user (Lurpoa) has been reported for multiple aliases created for the sole purpose of vote spamming, and action has been taken against this poster.
Spamming of any sort violates BBF rule #4. Although there have been others who used aliases, as long as the spirit of the rule was not violated, those posts are valid.

This is the first case of vote spamming we have heard of (Btw these need to be reported, otherwise we will not know). Please also cease your own retaliatory alias creations to vote spam this person, as these retaliatory votes also violate #4.

--------------
Btw action against Lurpoa is not permanent. BBF (imo, Bridge in general) needs to be a nicer place for newcomers like Lurpoa was - probably she felt harassed by negative votes or the tone of replies to her first posts, which resulted in the multiple alias to vote issue. I think you will find if you give posts, especially those by newcomers, the benefit of your doubt, most posters are sincere about sharing their point of view. I hope by writing this paragraph it will be clear that should Lurpoa return to BBF in the future, retaliatory actions against her because of this episode must cease - they violate rule #4, as mentioned above.

[JLOGIC]

Rain, it never ceases to amaze me how ignorant you are about pretty much everything related to BBF and BBF posts/posters/whatever. Not only that, but you do not even attempt to find facts, you merely make baseless speculations, and assume they are probably correct. As a person in a moderator/power role, you would think that you would at least attempt to improve upon this, but you never do. Especially as the moderator who excersizes her power the most often.

This statement is so far off:

Quote

BBF (imo, Bridge in general) needs to be a nicer place for newcomers like Lurpoa was - probably she felt harassed by negative votes or the tone of replies to her first posts, which resulted in the multiple alias to vote issue.

Believe it or not, Lurpoa brought the harrassment upon herself! She got negative voted and effectively ostracized, because she continuously negative voted people for no reason. This was before we were able to see who was downvoting anyone, so I'm sure she felt like she could get away with it (and indeed she could, see why enabling being able to see who was downvoting people was a positive thing?).

For instance in this thread:

http://www.bridgebas...ng/page__st__40

On june 8th (2 days after downvoting was enabled), starting on post #56 lurpoa starts ripping through with downvotes, amusingly right after I posted this in post #55:

Quote

Now that there are downvotes it is imperative to make who repped you available to the person. There should also be a way to see which of your posts were repped so you know. But if rep is not transparent then you can easily just get downvoted 100 times by someone who doesn't like you for no reason with no reprecussions to them.

She downvotes post #56, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75 within a 24 hour time period.

Likewise, in this thread:

http://www.bridgebas...ay/page__st__40

She downvotes post 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69.

You think this was caused by negative votes against her?

Perhaps she was upset with how she was treated just before this, or some of her posts that were downvoted. Let's see, here's one of her first posts to get downvoted:

http://www.bridgebas...__1#entry551549

Antrax replied to one of her posts about "I guess that's what makes experts, experts" with:

"Posted 2011-June-05, 08:13
Lurpoa, on 2011-June-05, 06:22, said:
Yes, judging those situations is what makes experts, experts I guess.....
Do you really believe experts are are experts thanks to their judgment on 7-5 hands?"

She replied with:

Quote

yes , and many other things, I guess, that we, the down to the earth haven't the slighthest idea of.
Feel free to share your expertise here....

We are here to learn....from you, the experts...

She got a single downvote for that. Who is harassing who in this thread?

Keep in mind, Antrax is a far newer poster than her with less posts, who posts mainly in the beginner/int section.

In fact, Lurpoa is not even a new poster, having posted here since November of 2010, with over 300 posts.

As far as I can tell (the downvotes are not time stamped, but I looked up june 5th to june 8th, the time when downvotes were enabled to the time lurpoas anonymous downvote spree occurred), lurpoa was downvoted 3 times, including that one. No one was ever nasty/rude to her, though some disagreed with her. Lurpoa was extremely nasty to Antrax however.

So, Lurpoa got downvoted a couple of times, after being extremely rude to an actual new poster, and making a couple of bad posts. Not the victim of harrassment as a new poster.

How about when she actually WAS a new poster? Here are some sample threads from her very beginnings on BBF:

http://www.bridgebas...__1#entry509324

http://www.bridgebas...__1#entry509324

http://www.bridgebas...__1#entry509324

http://www.bridgebas...__1#entry509324

You'll notice how everyone is nice and helpful. I went through all these threads, and these are the only examples I can find of anyone not being nice:

http://www.bridgebas...__1#entry519648

http://www.bridgebas...__1#entry508916

Two very mild sarcastic or rude posts. EXTREMELY mild. So overall, her beginnings on BBF people were extremely nice and positive to her. This is despite her doing stuff like giving advice on the adv/exp forum 3 times in february and march:


http://www.bridgebas...__1#entry526402 adv/exp

http://www.bridgebas...__1#entry527011 adv/exp

http://www.bridgebas...__1#entry527011 adv/exp

Why is it surprising she gave advice there? Well, she posted on november 19th that she:

Quote

nov 19th 2010: Just started to play bridge.

As far as I'm concerned, when you start posting in adv/exp threads after posting for 4 months, you lose your right to never even be criticized. When you are a novice, this might go badly, but still no one even criticized her in those threads, they just ignored her.

It is CLEAR to anyone that has paid attention at all that the negative tone and attitude in general towards Lurpoa began when she downvoted certain people maliciously for no reason, and in fact an entire thread. Once anyone expressed any negative attitude towards Lurpoa, their posts were downvoted routinely every single day after that (I think I and matmat and a few others were the main victims).

On top of all of this, Lurpoa had a quote in her profile saying:

Quote

"I would be most happy, when the one who down-votes my postings, leaves me a message, with some explanation why he/she did that. At least, maybe I could learn something. That is why I post in the first place. Many thanks."

That is extremely funny, since she was downvoting everyone for no reason. She was just a huge hypocrite, similar to jillybean who was downvoting everyone in the "plus vote give away thread" then spammed it with multiple posts asking for plus votes! At least jillybean had the sense to stop downvoting people for no reason once downvotes became public.

Obviously Lurpoa thought she would get away with it forever since downvotes were anonymous. When downvotes became public, it became evident what she had done. In reality she could not handle getting a couple of justified downvotes because she was immature, and probably was jealous of others with good reputation, so she went off. This is not the communities fault. To act as if she was a victim who was harrassed as a new member and driven to that is just incredibly funny, it shows that you really have no clue what is going on on this forum which you moderate and make critical decisions about.

BBO in general is one of the nicest forums I have ever seen towards new members. People were largely nice to Lurpoa forever, even when she was a terrible poster and not that new. You are doing a disservice to the community to act as if this was not the case.

Fred has always told me you are a great person who has worked extremely hard and been great for BBO. I respect that, but you are CONSISTENTLY completely incompetent and ignorant when it comes to BBF, and on top of that stubborn after the fact, and I wish you would at some point recognize that and cease to be the one who makes important decisions about it. AT LEAST MAKE SOME EFFORT TO GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT OR KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON PLEASE.

[mgoetze]

Rain, on 2011-June-23, 09:02, said:

Spamming of any sort violates BBF rule #4.

What rules? Are you talking about the "terms of service" which BBF staff refuse to provide any clarification on and which erroneously claim that threads which are in the wrong forum will be moved/deleted?
http://www.bridgebas...rms-of-service/

Quote

should Lurpoa return to BBF in the future

Eh, what? He/she doesn't seem to be gone.
http://www.bridgebas...titive-bidding/

JLOGIC, on 2011-June-23, 11:00, said:

How about when she actually WAS a new poster? Here are some sample threads from her very beginnings on BBF:

http://www.bridgebas...__1#entry509324

http://www.bridgebas...__1#entry509324

http://www.bridgebas...__1#entry509324

http://www.bridgebas...__1#entry509324

Copy & paste fail.

[Rain]

Justin, I accept your points here, but think this is also a not-too-veiled personal attack on me. (You could have just stated the downvoting history instead of your well chosen words about me and the way I handle BBF moderation.)

In this particular case, I realized after reading your post that all of you could see the names of who downvoted/upvoted. Weirdly, admins don't see this (I'd always thought admins would be able to see everything.) Logging in as a non admin would enable one to see the names of voters.
Therefore I think I made the logical assumption that everyone, like me, could only see the names of the voters who voted on their own post.
Therefore I made the (logical to me) assumption that to have known Lurpoa was targeting a few people's posts to downvote, and to have figured out so accurately her aliases, a group of regular people on BBF must have been comparing notes to decide what's going on, and therefore decided to retaliate as a group against Lurpoa.

Hence I decided to add a note after I detailed the admin actions taken against Lurpoa to make sure if she returns after the ban, she can start afresh.
Had I known there was no ganging up against her, I probably would have made the tone of the note nicer if I wrote one at all. There is no point in editing that note now, though I apologize to the BBFers I semi-accused of not being nice enough to a newer poster.

And regarding being a crappy moderator - well I try my best, but you're entitled to your points of view. I definitely try not to interfere in bridge stuff for one. Clearly there are better people than me to handle those. Unfortunately I am also likely to be the most active moderator most of the time since I consider it to be part of my job to participate in BBF. I am very happy being the backup person if I see the others around who are smarter than me about resolving issues, but when that's not possible, I will do what I think is right.

Edit: If you see people returning who are not supposed to, please report them. The software bans can only do so much. Thanks.

[mgoetze]

Rain, on 2011-June-23, 09:02, said:

One forum user (Lurpoa) has been reported for multiple aliases created for the sole purpose of vote spamming, and action has been taken against this poster.
Spamming of any sort violates BBF rule #4. Although there have been others who used aliases, as long as the spirit of the rule was not violated, those posts are valid.

Two questions - first, what action? Have any votes been cancelled? Lurpoa's votes all seem to still be in effect. Does that mean you consider those votes valid? Second, what on earth has voting got to do with spamming?

[hotShot]

I don't know if using several of your identities to downvote a spammer/troll is a good way to get the problem solved.

http://www.bridgebas...__1#entry509324
#1, #5, #7, #9 (,#11) ......


Reputation given
../../public/style_images/BridgeBase_Ehren_v1/delete.png JLOGIC
../../public/style_images/BridgeBase_Ehren_v1/delete.png hanp
../../public/style_images/BridgeBase_Ehren_v1/delete.png JLOL
../../public/style_images/BridgeBase_Ehren_v1/delete.png PhantomSac
../../public/style_images/BridgeBase_Ehren_v1/delete.png joeyc

[Rain]

Lurpoa and the aliases I know of, and the IP addresses I know about, have been banned. Her aliases I am trying to perm ban. The username Lurpoa will be allowed to return soon if all goes well (meaning if I stop seeing creations of aliases using new IP and other weird stuff), although when she returns, if she should wish to change to another main username she would be able to.

I don't see any option to cancel votes made.

Activating BBF IDs just to spamvote, whether positive or negative, is still spamming, violating the spirit of the no spam rule. Whether we are sometimes lax at enforcing some rules is beside the point Mgoetze. (Report the problem posts please.)

----------------------------
Although there is no way I can see to make voting active only if you have positive votes, or make - votes cost something, I now think we need to have a newcomer group (fast promotion to regular members) where a certain number of posts are needed before voting is enabled. I am fairly sure this can be done since someone created an advanced group for regular posters.

Finally, it doesn't look like we can trust voting as a main determinant in the logic of what posts are particularly good (for the purpose of automatically putting into news or homepage) if votes are not being used in the spirit intended.

[inquiry]

mgoetze, on 2011-June-23, 14:43, said:

Two questions - first, what action? Have any votes been cancelled? Lurpoa's votes all seem to still be in effect. Does that mean you consider those votes valid? Second, what on earth has voting got to do with spamming?

If I had a vote, I would vote against your question being answered. Actions taken against BBO members really are none of anyone's business but the BBO and the affected member. I will just tell you that imho the action taken in this case was entirely appropriate.

In fact, if Rain had realized there was not a conspiracy against the member in question, she would have never posted in the first place. I have not been a fan of the frequent public use of this members name in so many post, but I think this is type of discussion is necessary if we include up and down voting so that as a community we can understand acceptible behavior in this area. I would be against the up and down voting of individual post and just go with the "star voting" average on user's profiles. The good (or bad, depending on your point of view) thing about the star voting issue is something that is open to all members and all members can be voted (average stars shown, yes even for yellows). Everyone gets precisely one vote (total) for any other member.

[diana_eva]

I think Rain has a point when she asks experienced BBFer to be nicer to newcomers. Nobody says Lurpoa was "forced" to a hateful attitude and had no choice than become a serial downvoter. She behaved badly and she was punished. But, to clarify the facts:

After one neutral "i agree with X" post, Lurpoa asked a question and was told off. It was her first question in the Forums that got the rude answer from Mgoetze with "Go read about it, why ask here". I would not qualify that as "mildly rude", i feel it's plain rude, esp to a newcomer.

Then, each time she mentioned BWS, she got sarcastic answers (mainly from Mgoetze), even though she had mentioned that she just started playing bridge. Further on she posted another question, asking what sort of 2/1 she should start learning. That seems quite reasonable for a newcomer trying to fit in. And there is a time stamp if anyone feels like searching Lurpoa's content, from the beginning until now.

Agree with Justin that afterward things went bad, she started to post silly stuff and when she bugged in the Experts Forums she was "compromised".

I am not sure what sort of action any moderator should have taken right away, because:

1. The whole upvoting/downvoting thing was new, and it was normal to have some waves at first. After all, many of the experienced BBFers rushed back to older threads and started downvoting everything and everyone they disagreed with.
2. She was downvoting people but there was a whole gang against her as well. The anti-Lurpoa usernames were created long time before she started upvoting herself on other aliases. So in such cases, who to punish? Doesn't feel right to allow people to create usernames for the specific purpose of downvoting another person. Lurpoa was downvoting people on her own username, and she did not start creating aliases until a couple of days ago.

IMO there should have been some action against the rest of the downvoters such as LOL Lurpoa, Downvoter, BWS Slave, Justin's various aliases and whoever else was there. This was a two sided thing, not just one crazy poster doing absurd things.

Blame it on the moderators, fine - this was a new experiment for all, mods included. Rain's notice is just a reminder to be a bit more understanding towards new members while they are new.

This post has been edited by diana_eva: 2011-June-23, 16:03

[mgoetze]

Hi Diana,

diana_eva, on 2011-June-23, 16:00, said:

Then, each time she mentioned BWS, she got sarcastic answers (mainly from Mgoetze), even though she had mentioned that she just started playing bridge.

I'm not sure where she mentioned that - I never saw it. What I did see was that at the time her BBO profile was already set to "advanced". Anyway, I had made a nice attempt to explain on BBO (i.e. not via BBF) that her obsession with BWS was not the way to go. Those posts were basically a reaction to her disdain for my opinion.

[mgoetze]

inquiry, on 2011-June-23, 15:59, said:

If I had a vote, I would vote against your question being answered.

I don't actually care about whether Lurpoa is allowed to continue posting on the forums - as long as she doesn't keep creating new usernames, I am fine with using the forums filtering functions if necessary. But I do care what importance BBF staff assign to the voting system and how manipulation of it will be handled in the future.

Similarily, I actually do care what the sloppily-worded terms of service are supposed to mean, but it seems like the vote against answering my questions about them has been unanimous so far.

[cherdano]

Generally speaking, it would be a good idea if at least one of the BBF moderators were an active participant in another moderated forum.

[Bbradley62]

Rain, on 2011-June-23, 15:55, said:

Lurpoa and the aliases I know of, and the IP addresses I know about, have been banned. Her aliases I am trying to perm ban. The username Lurpoa will be allowed to return soon if all goes well (meaning if I stop seeing creations of aliases using new IP and other weird stuff), although when she returns, if she should wish to change to another main username she would be able to.

There is an awful lot of use of the word "I" in this explanation. Are moderators able to ban users unilaterally, or does this action require approval of a group?