Locked posts and karma

[Occidentalis]

This has probably been considered before, I just don't have the right search terms to find it, but what do you think about modifying the forum code/rules so that users with negative karma aren't allowed to lock their for sale posts regardless of contributor level? It seems like this may be a good way to offer more protection to buyers by being able to alert them to bad guy threads where the bad guy has received overwhelmingly negative karma.

Under the current system a user can list stolen animals and as long as they aren't breaking any site rules, they can lock the post and offer themselves total impunity to anyone who doesn't start digging.

 

[Beyond GenetiX]

I was wondering (what could be done) the same thing when I seen a string of boas posted recently. That would be a good way to keep people on the up and up. Nice suggestion!

 

[WebSlave]

I guess I'm not sure of the criteria being used to make such a judgement call by the staff here. Basically the karma system is a relative measure of what other members think about the posts someone has made on this site. Basically GOOD KARMA is for an especially good post, and NEGATIVE KARMA is for an especially good post. Certainly a personal opinion sort of thing, which is often pretty easy to detect abusive actions by someone simply by reading the post and using a "reasonable person" rule of thumb about the content.

What is the justification that just because some people do not like how someone posts, or what it IS they post, that their classified ads MUST be blocked from being locked because of that measure? What is it about the manner of their posting that would tie logically into the classified ad locking function?

I believe that we (me?) are on record stating that the karma system has nothing at all to do with anyone's business aspects on this site. As mentioned above, it is just an accumulated rating of other member's PERSONAL opinions about their posting on this site. Matter of fact, if someone were to use the karma system to exact some sort of vendetta or vengeance against someone, even in a case of being scammed or taken advantage of, then they themselves could find themselves in hot water for abusing the karma system by making arbitrary and capricious hits on that someone's karma rating. Some people have been "karma nuked" for just this sort of thing in the past. And that is simply just to terminate the abuse they were engaging in with that system.

So in reality, what is this suggestion actually supposed to be trying to accomplish concerning the classified ads?

 

[Beyond GenetiX]

I think what Alex was referring to, is that known scammers shouldn't be able to lock their classifieds. That is what I was I was referring to. I guess more along the lines of, if they had a lot of negative feedback against them.

 

[AbsoluteApril]

What is 'a lot'. How would you weigh good vs bad posts? By number/percentage? What about those threads that start out as bad but end good or vice versa? Who would make that call? Basically we can't make those judgement/opinion calls. While I don't like seeing people selling 'stolen' snakes or known 'bad guys' posting ads, that is what the BOI is for. Have to hope someone will research the person they want to deal with. It doesn't always happen of course but you cannot save people from themselves. I agree with the intention of the idea.

 

[Occidentalis]

Jason is correct in that the reality is this suggestion is attempting to address the fact that stolen animals are being sold on your website with impunity. A user currently selling stolen boas is an individual case, but one of a few recurring issues that are addressed by the proposed change.

My simple solution targets those users who otherwise follow posting rules but have clear negative karma levels by removing a feature that has repeatedly been implemented by scammers and their ilk to continue utilizing the site to both steal and sell stolen goods. It can probably be implemented with a simple if then loop that checks the karma level. The debatable part is at what threshold do you prevent a user from locking a post.

This change doesn't affect normal users or even people with negative karma and a good sales record. It only allows people to link bad guy threads in cases where buyers should be warned. Think of it as being a member in good standing. You can do whatever you want, but once you get noticed by people as being negative, you lose the privilege to hide behind a locked post.

 

[Occidentalis]

What is 'a lot'. How would you weigh good vs bad posts? By number/percentage? What about those threads that start out as bad but end good or vice versa? Who would make that call? Basically we can't make those judgement/opinion calls. While I don't like seeing people selling 'stolen' snakes or known 'bad guys' posting ads, that is what the BOI is for. Have to hope someone will research the person they want to deal with. It doesn't always happen of course but you cannot save people from themselves. I agree with the intention of the idea.

I agree and this is the part that is debatable. It seems though that an elegant solution could be found, but to me, negative would be the threshold. A user with negative karma but a clean sales record won't be hurt by not being able to lock the post. A user with negative karma and a negative sales record will be open to "buyer beware" links where potential buyers can just click the link.

As far as saving people from themselves - you definitely can not - that's clear from the number of people replying to five year old ads and replying to obvious scam posts - but you can make it easier to guide them to the answer. That's what I'm trying to propose with the change.

 

[JButera]

I'm for the no-lock for anyone suggesting. Bad or good karma, Good guy/Bad guy whatever. The infractions will fly, but it'll give a heads-up to unwary buyers while keeping the scammers on their toes.

 

[Occidentalis]

I'm for the no-lock for anyone suggesting. Bad or good karma, Good guy/Bad guy whatever. The infractions will fly, but it'll give a heads-up to unwary buyers while keeping the scammers on their toes.

This is a bigger change than I'm suggesting, I don't want to make more infraction work or moderation work for anyone. Just a one-time code alteration. I do see your point but locking does seem to be valuable to some people.

 

[nickolasanastasiou]

I'm for the no-lock for anyone suggesting. Bad or good karma, Good guy/Bad guy whatever. The infractions will fly, but it'll give a heads-up to unwary buyers while keeping the scammers on their toes.

As a moderator, I might not care about the workload increase concomitant with that proposed change. However, at least some teammates might not want the extra headache frequency and volume that brings, I imagine.

As a seller, I definitely would care about my ads potentially being clotted up with nonsense. I lock my ads to keep them clean of comments from the sorts of people who think a picta and a picturata are pretty much the same and all that that may entail in terms of ensuing ignorant commentary.

--------------------------

I find the primary theme of this thread interesting. I do have some concerns about abuse, as I immediately thought up a two-person (or two-account; not necessarily the same thing) angle of attack a person (or people) could use against any seller at any time for legitimate or illegitimate reasons. The more people (or more accounts) organized, the more abusive that idea of mine could become when applied. It might never come to such a scenario, so I do not know. I am obviously not sharing the exact framework here to make sure I do not give bad people good bad ideas.

I wonder if this change could be seen as some kind of personal staff judgment. Not for an individual instance, since it would - I assume - have blanket application, but for all instances as some sort of cosigning. I am divided on this.

Another matter is the nature of the karma system. It is a public opinion mirroring mechanism as I see it. I do not let who/what I like versus dislike affect my disbursement of karma when it comes to negative karma (as I do not give negative karma; I only give positive karma or none at all) and I therefore do not tie negative karma disbursement to my like or dislike of a member. I suspect that my approach to this might not be (is probably not) broadly shared. If people who do use karma to reflect personal dislike of a seller (perhaps not for anything to do with selling) use it in that vein, it could then open up good sellers with poorly executed expressions (or bad attitudes) to emotionally based vendetta from people with whom they simply do not get along. Some negative BOI threads have a genesis in personal conflict aside from or beyond business. Disputes where softer typing and more careful (and cooled down) wording on one or both sides might have made the end result positive enough for both parties so as not to leave things embittered. Opening up the ad threads of decent sellers who are bad at politics might end up a step too far, but I do not know. I am just considering some angles here. I am sure there are some folks who would deserve the end result of the proposed change. I wonder if there would be some folks who would not deserve it. That is another part of the mental wrestling match taking place in my thick skull.

 

[WebSlave]

And already the goal posts have changed concerning what criteria should be used to block ad locking. At first it was just related to negative karma. Now the criteria has become:

I think what Alex was referring to, is that known scammers shouldn't be able to lock their classifieds.

A user with negative karma and a negative sales record...

Who and what determines who is a bonafide PROVEN "scammer"? What constitutes a "negative sales record"? Those two added criteria cannot be done programmatically in any way I can think of. So that would mean that someone on the staff would have to make that determination and MANUALLY set some switch to block the ad locking for a particular member. Which means that WE would be tasked with making a judgement call about who is a spammer and who is not. Who has a "negative sales record" and who does not, based on what exactly?

Manually making that sort of determination makes us judges, jury, and executioner about someone's participation here on this site. What if we are wrong? None of us are private investigators, and quite frankly I have absolutely no intention of trying to become one. The guiding principle behind the Board of Inquiry was that the information would be offered by the members, and the members can make their own minds up about what it is they are reading. From DAY 1 I have said I will not be a judge in such matters when the evidence is all third party and not of my own personal knowledge and experience. I hold the moderators here to that same standard. And quite frankly, I just do not see that changing while I am still running this place. Not only is it just not fair, and subject to a whole rash of problems with us just having a bad day, not liking someone personally, or just being subject to a "garbage in, garbage out" situation based on the information provided by people we don't even know, it could subject us to some substantial legal liability by determining (in our opinion) that someone is a "scammer" and publicly labeling them as such.

Sorry, but that goes above and beyond what this site is here for, and what I intend to do in order to help people to help themselves in making rational and informed decisions about who to do business with. I will hand you the tools, but you have to train yourself how to use them, and make your own use of whatever you make from the use of those tools. That is it.

It can probably be implemented with a simple if then loop that checks the karma level.

Sorry, but I don't see this as being simple at all. Should someone have the manner in which they manage their own ads restricted because they made a few posts with profanity that people didn't like? Negative karma can be given for all kinds of reasons, and quite likely most of them having nothing at all to do with how that person does business. Then when you throw in the added criteria of "known scammer" and/or "negative sales record", well that simple "if then" loop isn't quite so simple any longer, now is it?

Seriously I have set up the classifieds to run in several different ways. Originally I believe it was set up where replies were unrestricted and unlimited. Some people complained about all the rampant bumping going on. Then I made the replies limited in a number of manners, which some people didn't seem to like neither. So now I have it so that the originators of the classified ads can choose how they want to run their ads in relation to replies, and still some people don't like that situation neither.

Obviously there is no perfect solution that will satisfy everyone, and just as obvious is that no matter which way I do this, some people are going to be unhappy about it. So without a really REALLY good reason to change it, I just don't see any overwhelming reason to do the work to make a change that will just alter the subset of people who will be unhappy with the change, from one group to another.

 

[JButera]

Obviously there is no perfect solution that will satisfy everyone, and just as obvious is that no matter which way I do this, some people are going to be unhappy about it. So without a really REALLY good reason to change it, I just don't see any overwhelming reason to do the work to make a change that will just alter the subset of people who will be unhappy with the change, from one group to another.

Funny thing happened last night; around 2 am. I heard a huge sigh of relief coming from the Phoenix area.

 

[Beyond GenetiX]

Rich

You have been at this far longer than I. I lock my classifieds and I'm sure it hurts my sells. I do so, to weed out the people who aren't interested enough to send a pm or email.

I replied to Alex's (I hope he doesn't mind me calling him Alex) as a, what could be done question. As in, what can be done to alert a new person about a potential or known scammed? I'm not telling you how to run your site, if I didn't like it I wouldn't be here. I understand that you are not here to judge and yes, I would hope people would do their homework. Unfortunately they do not. This is a discussion forum, just because people are discussing the site doesn't necessarily mean they are attacking how it is run.

I think that whoever reads this, knows who it is about. You will never be able to please everyone, keep up the good work.

Funny thing happened last night; around 2 am. I heard a huge sigh of relief coming from the Phoenix area.

 

[CwnAnnwn]

Just spit balling here. It is 5 am, I am up with pain, so this may not make any sense. Surgery in 6 days. But...

When I go to the BOI and read a topic, I find at the bottom a "similar threads" which contain links to other BOI.

Now the results are not perfect, but they do make people aware.

And I think aware is what we want correct?

So two ideas.

1.) No thread is locked in the sales area. Some are restricted to only linking to BOI reviews. Just make a script that says, you are posting in a restricted post, please enter the forum link to the review. The script checks to make sure it is from the BOI. Similar to the posting an image. Asks for the link, makes sure it is from the right place, posts it. Will not allow the same link to be posted twice in a row to prevent spamming. If someone decides to abuse the system, you bring the ban hammer down.

2.) Every sales thread has "BOI Threads" at the bottom, generated by the server. Like they are for the "similar threads" we currently have in the BOI just searches for the company name, the user name and the real name of the poster of the ad.


Hopefully both idea will make it so you can keep the clutter and infighting down. Yet get the information into the right hands at the right time.

People that are honest sellers will want their BOI to be linked to the thread and crooks will not get away with anything. No infighting in sales threads.

Everyone is happy?

 

[JButera]

1.) No thread is locked in the sales area. Some are restricted to only linking to BOI reviews. Just make a script that says, you are posting in a restricted post, please enter the forum link to the review. The script checks to make sure it is from the BOI. Similar to the posting an image. Asks for the link, makes sure it is from the right place, posts it. Will not allow the same link to be posted twice in a row to prevent spamming. If someone decides to abuse the system, you bring the ban hammer down.

I'm happy with the first and last sentence. Most of the ad posts aren't locked anyway, and only a few have one or two comments, most have zero. How about a universal no-lock policy until the ad is edited to read sold? i.e. Any ad with the prefix [SOLD!!] would automatically lock the ad. This way, if the commenting get's out of hand; the op can close shop, the comments come to a halt and the mods get a break.

 

[WebSlave]

This is a discussion forum, just because people are discussing the site doesn't necessarily mean they are attacking how it is run.

And I am not taking this as an attack. I am taking this as a serious suggestion, and I am treating it seriously. So I am sure I sound serious in my replies.

The problem is quite likely me. I have a programming background. I have had a lot of experience with this site teaching me how people act, what people expect and want, and how people will make tremendous efforts to circumvent anything put in place to try to circumvent their actions. I have also learned that although you can forcefully drag a horse to water with good intentions, you really can't make them drink. Sometimes you just have to allow a horse to nearly die from dehydration so they can learn a lesson when all your efforts to try to save it have failed.

So when I look at suggestions, I try to keep all of the above in mind. Programming is not an exercise in psychic abilities. It cannot know the intention of the words printed, only determine what the programmer has itemized as being relevant and actionable. Programming works best to make decisions when the options available to a user are limited and sharply defined. Asking a programming script to parse a Board of Inquiry thread to determine that a person is actually and truly a "bad guy" is, quite frankly, asking far too much of a programmer. Asking a program to be able to parse karma to determine the relevancy of that system to anything else related to the person in question will be a futile task. To simply set something up where ANY negative karma places limits on an advertiser will be futile. Matter of fact, I will even go out on a limb and state that it will ultimately be detrimental to this site. If people come to understand that people can limit the way they utilize the classifieds section merely because of what a few people may think of the posts they make anywhere on this site, obviously their best course of action is to ONLY post the bare minimum in order to avoid that situation. And as anyone who has been here for any length of time has plainly see, some people just do not like others, and have no hesitation about abusing any power placed within their hands in order to antagonize the subject of their ire.

So when this new system would be implemented, which my programmer does not do for free btw, and complaints start rolling in from people trying to utilize the classifieds and find that suddenly they cannot do something they used to do, who do you think they will come to? Besides, as we have seen, when someone posts a link to a BOI thread, normally they will just delete that thread and start a new one. So of course, the next suggestion will likely be to try to circumvent that situation as well. Which would again require more custom programming. Only to find that the targeted members have figured out yet another way to circumvent that as well.

If it were easy to actively and preemptively prevent criminal and unethical activity, it would have been implemented already. Truth of the matter, it cannot be. And honestly the BOI was created because of this fact. It was created to give people a place to go to in order to expose people who would be inclined to scam and/or cheat people to help others to make note of such people and hopefully avoid them. The classifieds were not designed to be any sort of filtering mechanism simply because unless this were a completely closed loop system, where the Board of Inquiry ONLY applied to transactions originating on this site (much like Ebay does it), there is really no feasible way to do that sort of thing here.

As I have mentioned before, I believe adequate tools are in place here for people to use to try to protect themselves, but nothing can prevent a motivated and clever person from circumventing them. There is no feasible way to prevent people from creating accounts with false names. How could there be? Require everyone to send copies of their birth certificates and driver's licenses proving their ID? And then I would have to hire an expert to try to identify photoshop efforts to create those documents fraudulently, now wouldn't I?

Anyway, getting off on a tangent........ But I do understand that the intentions are good with this suggestion, but as my programmer has very often done to me, I have to try to bring these suggestions down to earth to where only feasible and practical, much less possible, things can be implemented. And please note that the moderators here do a hell of a job weeding out phone accounts, spammers, and obvious offshore scammers, and do so as volunteers. I try hard not to overly burden them, which is why even something like adding a new infraction is given substantial consideration beforehand. They are here to help, but there are limits to that help. I also have an excellent vBulletin programmer helping me with this site, but again, there are limitations to what he can do. And lastly, there is me. Quite frankly, this site is not making that much money that I can afford to implement every suggestion made just to see whether it would truly be beneficial or not. This site cannot afford to make mistakes that will chase away membership. I cannot afford to make that kind of mistake, because right now the money coming in from my sites is putting food on the table. If this site goes into the red, I have to immediately apply for social security and the funtime with this internet stuff is over with.

So yes, I do give every suggestion due consideration and thought. But I have a lot of things to consider that are probably not self evident to the membership here. So when I explain why I think it may not be a good idea to implement, it is not my feeling that me or the site is being attacked. I am trying to make rational decisions that although may not make the site better, but will at least, hopefully, keep from making it worse for the majority of the participating membership.

Sorry, I am not going to proofread the above. I spent far too much time on this response, and the sun is shining, it's 75 degrees and beautiful outside, and that is where I am headed RIGHT NOW.

 

[Occidentalis]

I was not adding criteria with the negative sales record statement, I was explaining scenarios to qualify how my change would impact different kinds of users. I have not changed the goal posts. I never said known scammer, either. Those aren't really easily quantifiable things in code.

The only conditional statement I'm proposing would be something like

if (karma = negative) {
post locking = disabled;
}

You could even do an elseif if you decided on a different threshold, like account age, total post count, % negative feedback, whatever. But that's the debatable part, not the point I'm trying to make, really.

I don't really see much applicable criticism to this suggestion other than the cost to code and the "delete and repost" way of getting around it. I'm not going to push this anymore, it is just a suggestion to improve the site that I think would be simple and effective, only applicable to a few people who are currently gaming the system to sell stolen animals.

 

[WebSlave]

I was not adding criteria with the negative sales record statement, I was explaining scenarios to qualify how my change would impact different kinds of users. I have not changed the goal posts. I never said known scammer, either. Those aren't really easily quantifiable things in code.

The only conditional statement I'm proposing would be something like

if (karma = negative) {
post locking = disabled;
}

You could even do an elseif if you decided on a different threshold, like account age, total post count, % negative feedback, whatever. But that's the debatable part, not the point I'm trying to make, really.

I don't really see much applicable criticism to this suggestion other than the cost to code and the "delete and repost" way of getting around it. I'm not going to push this anymore, it is just a suggestion to improve the site that I think would be simple and effective, only applicable to a few people who are currently gaming the system to sell stolen animals.

Yes, I do understand what you are suggesting, and yes I do understand the coding that could implement such a suggestion. The sticking point is that karma really has nothing at all to do, by design, with an individual member's status concerning posting classified ads. The karma system is merely an effort to try to get people to post more QUALITY statements to be an asset to this site via their participation. The theory being that some people will like getting "attaboys" for their posts here, and endeavor to make more posts that they hope will qualify for more "attaboys". The negative aspect is hoped to guide members by indicating that some people do not like the topic and/or mannerisms or attitude they are posting. The more negative karma, the more likelihood they are out of sync with the rest of the membership. And as such, perhaps they will change their ways. Of course, many people don't care about it at all.

So, again, what does the karma system have to do with someone posting ads? If the karma system were limited to only applying to classified ads, then I could see the logic to what you are suggesting. But then it really wouldn't be a karma system at all when implemented in that manner. But it doesn't have anything to do with classified ads, and not likely to in the future. Quite honestly, if the suggestion had been to apply this restriction using the Trader's Ratings, then I would be more able to see the logic of how this would be intended to work. But karma? Sorry, but no, I just don't see the logical connection based on what the karma system IS and what is wanted for it to affect in the classifieds.

So as it stands now, if you see someone posting in the classifieds that you know or strongly suspect to be a problem, simply use his or her identifying info to create your own BOI thread. That way at least the BOI button in the ad will take an interested party right to your suspicions and/or claims. Honestly, if someone doesn't even bother doing that, then they are on their own. Another horse just bites the dust because it is CHOOSING not to drink.