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Other Unethical Manipulation of CAP Polls
- Thread starter DougJustDoug
- Start date
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We can't possibly get all forms of cheating. Especially not the cheating that occurs in that gray area of acceptable and unethical methods. Every system has a loophole for cheaters. The current one does, and as everyone is proving to each other, most proposed ones do. The ones that are completely cheater-proof alienate or exclude new users and that's not what we want at all.
Would it be possible to effect a system where known members are "trusted" more and newer or otherwise suspicious accounts are flagged to be inspected for cheating at the end of a poll? What does inspection include currently? I know ip checking and such, but is the username and its alias searched to see if it was recruited by another forum? I think if people are warned before they vote that illegitimate votes will not be counted and they may count as an offense, this will be fair.
Would it be possible to effect a system where known members are "trusted" more and newer or otherwise suspicious accounts are flagged to be inspected for cheating at the end of a poll? What does inspection include currently? I know ip checking and such, but is the username and its alias searched to see if it was recruited by another forum? I think if people are warned before they vote that illegitimate votes will not be counted and they may count as an offense, this will be fair.
What about a electoral college sort of thing? for the final 4 concepts or something, have ~80 trusted cap members that can vote. allow everybody to use the clicky poll, and the use the results to let the 80 trusted members decide.. something along those lines. I feel im kinda onto something, but i can't really figure it all out, i'll try to complete my idea.
If you're going to use a small group of people, allowing only the Policy Commitee is the most sensible option.
As far as the art goes, however, the Policy Commitee wouldn't be any more trusted than the general public, really. There has been talk of an "Artist Group" being put together, so that may be a possibility.
I was thinking of an idea similar to this.
-At the beginning of each CAP, we could have a thread where people could nominate themselves to vote in the polls, and attempt to gain public support, like a government election campaign. Then, an odd number of voters (to ensure that there are no ties) are voted to vote on all decisions by their peers, who feel they will make a good suggestion. This is a system very similar to what is used in Congress and the electoral college. I also got to be part of this system in a government-style project in 8th grade, so I know quite a bit about it.
-If everyone who joins CAP can support at least one of these voters, they'll be happy knowing that their representative tried. The representative should look at what his/her supporters want most, and vote for that.
-If we absolutely had to, we could put in our signatures what voter we were supporting throughout each CAP project, so the voters would know what to look for.
Just something to consider. This isn't really limiting the voters, since the voters represent a certain population of CAP users.
I've personally been a longtime lurker who liked Cartoon's design so much that I signed up just to vote for it
I must admit, I was approached by a very evil person regarding who to vote for in the CAP polls. He tried to persuade me to vote after I had voted. I will not mention names, only that it was a GreaTly mesSed-up person.
I think the manipulation adds to the interest in CAP. I don't think it has to be removed, as it requires people to try and convince people to vote for the most part.
Most (obviously not all) or the people who will be persuaded will make their own decision. All that you entice them to do is vote, which should increase traffic and interest at times.
I think the manipulation adds to the interest in CAP. I don't think it has to be removed, as it requires people to try and convince people to vote for the most part.
Most (obviously not all) or the people who will be persuaded will make their own decision. All that you entice them to do is vote, which should increase traffic and interest at times.
People who say that we should deny people voting rights if they don't have a certain number of posts aren't considering the fact that one of the absolute best places for new members to become acquainted with Smogon is with the CAP project, and voting in a poll immediately is a perfectly valid way to do so in that case. In addition, I would like to add that the first time we became aware of this (which was CAP5), a few of the cheaters actually DID post in the thread cheering for whoever it was they voted for, in order to cover their tracks. It is for these same reasons that I don't like the idea of people signing up to post in a CAP, as it limits contribution immensely and turns off new members hoping to establish themselves within the community. And there's nothing stopping the alt-users from posting in a sign-up thread.
In all honesty, I don't think there is a reasonable and easy way to cut the cheating. Many polls are done by large corporations, websites, and in some cases even the government. None of those polls are 100% accurate and they don't even monitor them to see if cheating/lying goes on. They simply accept the results because of the massive number of honest voters weighing out the few mischievous people who decide to tamper with the results. The reason why our problem is larger is because we don't have nearly as many voters, and so it's much easier to tamper with the results in this fashion.
Doug said in the first post that the top form of "cheating" at the moment is recruiting voters from other sites who are unaffiliated with CAP. The thing about this form of tampering is that it doesn't seem as inherently wrong to many people, and so I wouldn't be surprised if many of these voters didn't understand the ramifications of their actions. While I don't think we can come up with an easy system that stops all the forms of cheating possible, including the use of alts, I think that we can successfully curb a lot of recruiting by making it really clear that it's reprehensible and considered tampering. Put a big warning up, perhaps in the thread if necessary. A cheater hellbent on altering the poll isn't going to care about this, but for the unaffiliated friend who wouldn't know that this is wrong, or the frustrated CAP member who is upset that their favorite option is losing, they might be persuaded away from voting by this warning.
As for alt-cheating, I'm under the impression that there isn't as much of this going on as there is recruitment. It's also easier to catch, as IPs can be compared and there aren't many people who are determined enough to sign up alts under proxies. We can never be totally safe, but I don't think extreme measures need to be taken to stop this and I certainly don't believe that tactics that discourage new members from posting are the answer to our problems.
In all honesty, I don't think there is a reasonable and easy way to cut the cheating. Many polls are done by large corporations, websites, and in some cases even the government. None of those polls are 100% accurate and they don't even monitor them to see if cheating/lying goes on. They simply accept the results because of the massive number of honest voters weighing out the few mischievous people who decide to tamper with the results. The reason why our problem is larger is because we don't have nearly as many voters, and so it's much easier to tamper with the results in this fashion.
Doug said in the first post that the top form of "cheating" at the moment is recruiting voters from other sites who are unaffiliated with CAP. The thing about this form of tampering is that it doesn't seem as inherently wrong to many people, and so I wouldn't be surprised if many of these voters didn't understand the ramifications of their actions. While I don't think we can come up with an easy system that stops all the forms of cheating possible, including the use of alts, I think that we can successfully curb a lot of recruiting by making it really clear that it's reprehensible and considered tampering. Put a big warning up, perhaps in the thread if necessary. A cheater hellbent on altering the poll isn't going to care about this, but for the unaffiliated friend who wouldn't know that this is wrong, or the frustrated CAP member who is upset that their favorite option is losing, they might be persuaded away from voting by this warning.
As for alt-cheating, I'm under the impression that there isn't as much of this going on as there is recruitment. It's also easier to catch, as IPs can be compared and there aren't many people who are determined enough to sign up alts under proxies. We can never be totally safe, but I don't think extreme measures need to be taken to stop this and I certainly don't believe that tactics that discourage new members from posting are the answer to our problems.
Until somebody can give me a list of these 'false voters,' point to it and tell me honestly, "This is fucking CAP up," I will not support any amount of sweeping reforms.
Seriously, people. We are actually talking about trying to elect CAP "representatives" because there are people trying to skew an Art thread. Seriously? We're going to shortshift one of the things that make CAP so attractive, that people feel like they're actively building a Pokemon when they vote, and turn it into a system where a relatively small group of representatives decide this? Am I reading this correctly? Is my screen busted?
Frankly, I'm not aware of a way to "fix this" that isn't bullshit in some form or other. Beej's method is probably the least amount of hassle for everybody involved; we strongly discourage this, and root it out as we can. Trying to impose "voting restrictions" or "registrations" is going to cut off some vein within CAP that would've been fine had we not been trying to crack a nut with a jackhammer, so to speak. There's a very strong possibility extreme measures just for this will hurt more than it helps.
Seriously, people. We are actually talking about trying to elect CAP "representatives" because there are people trying to skew an Art thread. Seriously? We're going to shortshift one of the things that make CAP so attractive, that people feel like they're actively building a Pokemon when they vote, and turn it into a system where a relatively small group of representatives decide this? Am I reading this correctly? Is my screen busted?
Frankly, I'm not aware of a way to "fix this" that isn't bullshit in some form or other. Beej's method is probably the least amount of hassle for everybody involved; we strongly discourage this, and root it out as we can. Trying to impose "voting restrictions" or "registrations" is going to cut off some vein within CAP that would've been fine had we not been trying to crack a nut with a jackhammer, so to speak. There's a very strong possibility extreme measures just for this will hurt more than it helps.
I only joined Smogon to vote in the CAP polls a while back, I dont think limiting post count or having registration issues would be of any use to CAP, if anything, it would alienate people who wanted to go through the process of building a Pokemon.
Magmortified is correct, there isnt actually anything which can be done without loosing the basic freedom of CAP and remove all cheating, people need to grow up and face the fact, life isnt fair, its full of cheats.
Thank you for your time.
Magmortified is correct, there isnt actually anything which can be done without loosing the basic freedom of CAP and remove all cheating, people need to grow up and face the fact, life isnt fair, its full of cheats.
Thank you for your time.
Even though I haven't been a regular poster in the CAP forum I've been a causal follower of the project for a while and something that occurred to me is that it could be helpful to make the submissions of art/sprites/etc anonymous. This wouldn't necessarily solve the recruiting problem on it's own but at least people would be voting for the art and not because they have a personal problem with the artist as Doug mentioned in the OP.
The problem we have is that an account that looks like an alt or recruited voter can very easily be a legitimate user and vice versa. We have absolutely no way whatsoever of knowing for sure which it is. Therefore, the best thing we can do is have the current enforcement we already have and take action when cheating arises.
It's like the police in the real world: they don't know that someone's going to commit a crime until that someone has committed a crime.
It's like the police in the real world: they don't know that someone's going to commit a crime until that someone has committed a crime.
To be honest, this shocks me. I have always considered Smogon, and a limited number of other "elitist" sites, as oases of reason and maturity in a vast desert of malicious bigotry, irrational and vengeful sulking, sheer stupidity and smut, so perhaps naievly I had assumed that this type of behaviour would be kept to a bare minimum.
I don't think you can reasonably impose any sort of outside requirement for voting, expecially in the art polls. Please don't eat me, but you actually don't need much esperience in CAP to look at the typing, see the artworks and evaluate which ones are more suitable and better looking. Art is often more a matter of taste then experience.
Perhaps some sort of message at the top of the post might work, in the manner of the anti-piracy appeals before films. They don't actually prevent unethical (and in that case illegal) behaviour, but the appeal to someone's better nature, who, after all, might just be there at a request from a friend. Something like:
STOP: All artists have contributed to the community without any thought of remuneration or reward. Please repect this by making a considered decision.
Written in large, striking format of course.
I don't think you can reasonably impose any sort of outside requirement for voting, expecially in the art polls. Please don't eat me, but you actually don't need much esperience in CAP to look at the typing, see the artworks and evaluate which ones are more suitable and better looking. Art is often more a matter of taste then experience.
Perhaps some sort of message at the top of the post might work, in the manner of the anti-piracy appeals before films. They don't actually prevent unethical (and in that case illegal) behaviour, but the appeal to someone's better nature, who, after all, might just be there at a request from a friend. Something like:
STOP: All artists have contributed to the community without any thought of remuneration or reward. Please repect this by making a considered decision.
Written in large, striking format of course.
This. The cheaters do change the poll, but most of the voters are never on the server. While I haven't been on tht much recently, at the time of this posting, there are 19 people on the server, and 35 viewing the forum, waiting to see what I post next. There is something wrong with that. For every cheater there are three voters who have never been on the server. With art polls, the number of cheaters goes up, but so does the non-server users.
While cheating is unethical and wrong, not using the CAPs is time wasting for you, and bad for us, the users.
I made this thread primarily to get the issue out there in the open. I didn't really expect to find a solution. I just wanted to expose the problem to the CAP community at large.
There are a lot of people in CAP who think that these poll results are being decided by reasoned consideration of CAP members. And even in the case of noobs who don't think too hard about what they are voting for -- most people think the noobs are "CAP noobs", at least. Unfortunately, that's just not how it works these days. There is active recruiting from other sites, there are organized voting campaigns by "teams" of voters, and there is outright cheating going on -- quite a bit of it actually.
I personally hate it. But, I cannot think of any way to eliminate it without altering the fundamental accessibility of the CAP project, which is one of the primary reasons for CAP's popularity and success. I appreciate the many suggestions posted in this thread, but I don't expect to put any of them into practice. I think the damage would exceed the benefit.
Hopefully this thread has removed the community's rose-colored glasses, and exposed everyone to what's REALLY going on in some of our most hotly-contested polls. At the very least, you won't be naive if you see some suspicious voting patterns in a future poll. And to submitters that participate in various CAP polls (not just art btw) -- now you know what you are really up against, in certain cases.
I do think we need to make a rule that says all forms of poll tampering AND recruiting is illegal. Realistically, there is no way to enforce such a rule. But the existence of a rule makes it clear that we do not condone or encourage such practices. Without a rule, it's possible that people could assume that voting campaigns are "allowed" -- and take it to a whole new level.
Imagine if people started offering to buy votes? What if an artist made a triple-flawless legendary giveaway thread in wifi, with the stipulation "I will give you this pokemon if you vote for my art in the current CAP poll." I have already outlawed server mods using wall messages to advocate poll options on the CAP server. But what about other servers? What if other communities openly post CAP vote recruitment messages in their forums?
Technically, none of this is illegal today. It may not be happening currently, but now that the issue is out in the open -- if we do not make a rule, people could assume that these actions are actually condoned. For this reason, I think we should make a blanket rule that says:
Maybe that's not the perfect wording -- but that's a decent start. A short, somewhat ambiguous ban on voter manipulation and cheating, followed by a statement that allows advocacy within the CAP project itself. I do not want to get into long detailed descriptions of what constitutes "vote manipulation", "voter recruiting", and "the bounds of the CAP project". It's intentionally left somewhat open-ended. Moderators will use their best judgement, if a questionable situation arises. By placing a blanket ban on all this nonsense, we make it clear that we do not accept or condone these practices, even if we really can't stop it completely.
There are a lot of people in CAP who think that these poll results are being decided by reasoned consideration of CAP members. And even in the case of noobs who don't think too hard about what they are voting for -- most people think the noobs are "CAP noobs", at least. Unfortunately, that's just not how it works these days. There is active recruiting from other sites, there are organized voting campaigns by "teams" of voters, and there is outright cheating going on -- quite a bit of it actually.
I personally hate it. But, I cannot think of any way to eliminate it without altering the fundamental accessibility of the CAP project, which is one of the primary reasons for CAP's popularity and success. I appreciate the many suggestions posted in this thread, but I don't expect to put any of them into practice. I think the damage would exceed the benefit.
Hopefully this thread has removed the community's rose-colored glasses, and exposed everyone to what's REALLY going on in some of our most hotly-contested polls. At the very least, you won't be naive if you see some suspicious voting patterns in a future poll. And to submitters that participate in various CAP polls (not just art btw) -- now you know what you are really up against, in certain cases.
I do think we need to make a rule that says all forms of poll tampering AND recruiting is illegal. Realistically, there is no way to enforce such a rule. But the existence of a rule makes it clear that we do not condone or encourage such practices. Without a rule, it's possible that people could assume that voting campaigns are "allowed" -- and take it to a whole new level.
Imagine if people started offering to buy votes? What if an artist made a triple-flawless legendary giveaway thread in wifi, with the stipulation "I will give you this pokemon if you vote for my art in the current CAP poll." I have already outlawed server mods using wall messages to advocate poll options on the CAP server. But what about other servers? What if other communities openly post CAP vote recruitment messages in their forums?
Technically, none of this is illegal today. It may not be happening currently, but now that the issue is out in the open -- if we do not make a rule, people could assume that these actions are actually condoned. For this reason, I think we should make a blanket rule that says:
"All forms of vote cheating, vote manipulation, or voter recruiting from outside the CAP project is disallowed. It is perfectly acceptable to advocate for or against poll options within the bounds of the CAP project."
Maybe that's not the perfect wording -- but that's a decent start. A short, somewhat ambiguous ban on voter manipulation and cheating, followed by a statement that allows advocacy within the CAP project itself. I do not want to get into long detailed descriptions of what constitutes "vote manipulation", "voter recruiting", and "the bounds of the CAP project". It's intentionally left somewhat open-ended. Moderators will use their best judgement, if a questionable situation arises. By placing a blanket ban on all this nonsense, we make it clear that we do not accept or condone these practices, even if we really can't stop it completely.
Uh, really? That's kinda dumb. I have voted for all CAPs artworks so far without fail, because I like art and art is pretty. I have never in my whole life went to the CAP server. But what's the point? Is a sprite gonna change the way the pokemon was built? A sprite is just a mask for the pokémons stats, hell, all of the pokemons created so far could have completely backwards sprites and art and still be played as they are played today. So I don't understand this feud of yours at all. Why would you only let people who play pokemon vote? It's art. It's just a matter of taste and appearance, nothing more.
Unless I am misinterpreting all of this, and you are actually referring to the other polls (ie. pokémons type, attacks, stast, etc.), which in that case, I agree with you and apologize for my outburst. I don't vote in these, though
Hey, thought I would comment on the situation. I've been lurking in this forum for a while. I don't like to get too hands on with the process since I don't feel my opinion is necessarily the one that is best suited for the CAP projects. However, I am very interested in the process and I enjoy voting for the art poll in particular. I feel requiring a certain post count could possibly defer people like myself from possibly becoming involved with the CAP project in the future. All elections have cheating to some extent. And while it is unethical, requiting voters still gets additional attention to the CAP project as a whole -- not necessarily a bad thing. I might add that while I am mostly a lurker now, that doesn't mean I will always be one.
Sorry if I am rambling, thanks for your time.
Sorry if I am rambling, thanks for your time.
Maybe what X-Act (and Hydrolphin) wanted to say is that a lot of people simply vote on the art poll, but their interest in the project simply ends there. Ok, art is not stats, or movepool, or whatever. But the people who constantly have to "deal" with the artwork (and the sprites) are those who join the server.
An example may make it clearer. Say we have in the final artwork A and artwork B. I am a CAP server regular (or sort of), and I heartily hate A. So, obviously, I would go with B, since I will not like having A under my eyes whenever I battle or teambuild on CAP server. You, on the other side, (you is not a specific person - is a sort of "mask" if you like) are a casual voter, who see art B and say "woot this is cool". You vote for it. If B wins, however, this has minimal influence on you (or interest), since after (at best) the smogon news frontpage which announces the end of the CAP, chances are you will never see that artwork for your whole life (or kinda so).
So, in the end, while for a CAP server regular artowork is something they constantly have to "face" (at least in its sprite form), casual voters simply come by, express their opinion, and leave. To them, which artwork wins is completely irrelevant, i.e. they will never care about it in the future. If A would have won instead of B (in the case of the sample voter above), it would not have had any effect on him besides "Meh, art B was better". They can simply wait next CAP, since, never visiting the CAP server, past CAPs simply don't exist for them
@stupid bystander: thinking such unethical method of voting may draw more interest is almost ridiculous. How can the existance of such cheating benefit CAP appearance? If ever, this form of cheating may discredit the project as a whole. It is inherently a bad thing, and while it is impractical to stop, we cannot accept or even tolerate it. As Doug said, we must put it clear: We do not accept any form of cheating
The point is -- Why would people cheat on ANYTHING -- art included -- when they will not even experience the pokemon after the poll is over?
For most people, the art poll is literally the last time they will see the CAP pokemon AT ALL. For the small number of people that actually PLAY with these pokemon, they at least have to see the pokemon in battle all the time. At least those people have some form of lasting reason to manipulate a poll. But for everyone else, there is really no motivation whatsoever -- other than having the internal satisfaction of know that "their favorite option won".
I'm not saying that it's wrong to vote for something that you will never play. That's fine. People do that in CAP all the time -- 90% or more of the time, in fact. But why would anyone go through all the work to recruit, manipulate, or cheat -- when they won't see or experience that pokemon ever again?
For most people, the art poll is literally the last time they will see the CAP pokemon AT ALL. For the small number of people that actually PLAY with these pokemon, they at least have to see the pokemon in battle all the time. At least those people have some form of lasting reason to manipulate a poll. But for everyone else, there is really no motivation whatsoever -- other than having the internal satisfaction of know that "their favorite option won".
I'm not saying that it's wrong to vote for something that you will never play. That's fine. People do that in CAP all the time -- 90% or more of the time, in fact. But why would anyone go through all the work to recruit, manipulate, or cheat -- when they won't see or experience that pokemon ever again?
Perhaps you misunderstand what I am trying to say. In order to recruit votes, the recruited must be made aware of what they are voting for. That said, I would not support or even condone such behavior. I guess it was a crappy attempt at optimism.
See, such an argument is obsolete because this project claims to help introduce new people into the community, well whether it says it or not people use this argument, yet it has turned into a quandary over cheating. Yes, people cheat. If you want to completely eliminate cheating and have the 50 people~ who actually will use it type of poll, then this should obviously not be hosted here. Turning a fun project to something completely serious is kinda ridiculous. Ok, you can be angry that no one is using it after voting but it has been this way since the very beginning.
The underlying problem has become apparent that it is not necessarily the cheating, or the "unethical manipulation" of polls, but rather the frustration of going through these long processes only to see the same 20 (exaggeration) people battling in the CAP server. I'm sure that a lot of people who claim to be active here, whether you want to admit it or not, have possibly never even battled using a CAP pokemon.
Doomsday and even myself, for instance would be an example of this. Nonetheless, yes, cheating is bad. But like Doomsday, I think the extent to which this problem has become developed is absurd.
The underlying problem has become apparent that it is not necessarily the cheating, or the "unethical manipulation" of polls, but rather the frustration of going through these long processes only to see the same 20 (exaggeration) people battling in the CAP server. I'm sure that a lot of people who claim to be active here, whether you want to admit it or not, have possibly never even battled using a CAP pokemon.
It has been this way since the beginning. 500 people have supposedly 'voted' in the art poll, yet there probably wont even be 70 people who actually use it.
Doomsday and even myself, for instance would be an example of this. Nonetheless, yes, cheating is bad. But like Doomsday, I think the extent to which this problem has become developed is absurd.
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