Community Relations Archive
Thread: One Star Forum Rank Griefing
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Skurr
Mon Jan 31, 2005 8:09 am
#1
Today I took a look at my account today and noticed that some individual took it upon themselves to one star EVERY SINGLE of my posts that I have ever wrote that was able to be ranked. As of two days ago when I checked they were normal. I have a good idea who the individual is that is doing it, and it stems from a auction item that he did not get. My question is is there any way to thwart this type of griefing or at least turn off the star ranking system on my account. This is getting annoying. My understanding of this system is that is anonoymous and a person can hit you on all your posts. I know that the system basically is only for recieving a quicker ranking within the forums, but this kind of obvious griefing malicious and simply generated to give the person a bad reputation within the forums without giving a person the benifit of the doubt. What can I do, other than accuse with no proof?
Skurr
Tue Feb 01, 2005 12:36 am
#4
The issue NOT forum ranking but rather the "one star" a post or poster gets from a griefer. You ask a good question as to why this even matters. All of my best sells (1 mil+ credits) were a direct result of the Auction Forum. When a post is one starred most, including myself, EVEN IF IT IS A GOOD ITEM AT A GOOD PRICE think twice about dealing with that individual, because you ask yourself "why was this person one starred". The credibility of the person that was one starred is questioned as is his character. And since most wont take the time to search the persons past posts and judge for themselves MOST will simply pass up the one starred person's post and go to the next. The result is a lost sale or, in the case if you have a question that is important to your gameplay, you simply get no response at all. This is a serious griefing loop hole that many take part in and ALOT of people are tired of.
What is the one star? On every post that a person makes there is an option at the bottom right hand of the post to rank it 1-5. 1 being a poor post and 5 being the best. If no one had ranked it prior and a person clicks the one... waaaalaaaaa you have been one starred. This system is anonomous and cant be tracked by moderators. In my case as of 2 days ago I had a few one stars due to a bad auction. Today I get on and see every single post that is able to be starred one starred and past posts that I had been 5 starred in brought down to 4 or 3 due to a one starring. That is griefing plain and simple.
The flip side and another flaw of the system is if a person is part of a 100+ memeber guild and they decide to 5 star every post the guy made...voooommmm up in forum rank he goes and when admin review and go to make a new correspondent for a paticular group or forum guess whose name is at the top of the list? Is that fair? No.
What is the remedy? To simply remove the starring system all together. As far as rank goes that should be something that Correspondents recommend and Correspondents and Admin give based on THEIR assesment of the poster. Not some pissed off 13 year old mad because he lost an auction for an AA. That way any question concerning rank will have a tangible entity to engage. And your talking about HTML code not some complex C++/Java graphical ingame interface you have to take time to change. Its as simple as editing the HTML code to change/remove the star ranking.
I understand the jist of the star system, letting the community rank a message. What would be better is if it was something like ebay where you cant just drop a star but you have to actually write down what your issue is and that whole post is the "star". And if you try to be slick by starring and leave out the message, the original poster can simple report it as an empty griefer post and get it deleted and his rating is intact. At least that gives the poster of the message a chance to defend themselves and makes a griefer accountable for his actions. Will SOE do that? Probably not, too much work. Simply removing the starring system all together is easier and makes all sides happy.
I hope I answered your question.
What is the one star? On every post that a person makes there is an option at the bottom right hand of the post to rank it 1-5. 1 being a poor post and 5 being the best. If no one had ranked it prior and a person clicks the one... waaaalaaaaa you have been one starred. This system is anonomous and cant be tracked by moderators. In my case as of 2 days ago I had a few one stars due to a bad auction. Today I get on and see every single post that is able to be starred one starred and past posts that I had been 5 starred in brought down to 4 or 3 due to a one starring. That is griefing plain and simple.
The flip side and another flaw of the system is if a person is part of a 100+ memeber guild and they decide to 5 star every post the guy made...voooommmm up in forum rank he goes and when admin review and go to make a new correspondent for a paticular group or forum guess whose name is at the top of the list? Is that fair? No.
What is the remedy? To simply remove the starring system all together. As far as rank goes that should be something that Correspondents recommend and Correspondents and Admin give based on THEIR assesment of the poster. Not some pissed off 13 year old mad because he lost an auction for an AA. That way any question concerning rank will have a tangible entity to engage. And your talking about HTML code not some complex C++/Java graphical ingame interface you have to take time to change. Its as simple as editing the HTML code to change/remove the star ranking.
I understand the jist of the star system, letting the community rank a message. What would be better is if it was something like ebay where you cant just drop a star but you have to actually write down what your issue is and that whole post is the "star". And if you try to be slick by starring and leave out the message, the original poster can simple report it as an empty griefer post and get it deleted and his rating is intact. At least that gives the poster of the message a chance to defend themselves and makes a griefer accountable for his actions. Will SOE do that? Probably not, too much work. Simply removing the starring system all together is easier and makes all sides happy.
I hope I answered your question.
Skurr
Tue Feb 01, 2005 8:49 am
#5
I agee with your above post absolutely. Unfortunatly not everyone has the gumption to act in the same regard. And regardless what GarVa and others post, the star rating (AND FOR THE LAST TIME *****NOT**** FORUM RANK BUT THE ****POST STARING SYSTEM****)DOES MATTER to alot of folks that take part of SOE forums. I for one take (or took) pride in helping others, enjoyed asking questions, and voicing my opinion on wrongs within the forums. And when you post something to come back and see that someone rated your post poorly with no explantion is like a slap in the face. And to take it a step further for someone to go and one star ALL your posts is even worse. You can almost here the 11 year old giggling as he one stars each and every post you have ever made. And regardless what other opinions about it there IS a large part of the forum community, noobs and veterans alike, that take issue with this. Scroll back to previous posts and look how many have posted questions concerning this One Star griefing issue.
As far as your comment about the auction, I again have to echo something I have posted a couple times already. You may have a good item at a good price but ONLY A FOOL would not question why a person was one starred and ONLY A FOOL would not be sceptical concerning the individuals crediablity and/or honor in sales. The star rating DOES marr an individuals reputation, especially if you take part of the forums on a regular basis. And to ignore it would be foolish.
ONCE AGAIN the flaw is no accountability.
As far as your comment about the auction, I again have to echo something I have posted a couple times already. You may have a good item at a good price but ONLY A FOOL would not question why a person was one starred and ONLY A FOOL would not be sceptical concerning the individuals crediablity and/or honor in sales. The star rating DOES marr an individuals reputation, especially if you take part of the forums on a regular basis. And to ignore it would be foolish.
ONCE AGAIN the flaw is no accountability.
Skurr
Tue Feb 01, 2005 11:34 am
#7
I appreciate the stars, thanks, but Im still going to push this issue i didnt realize how big it was untill I took the time to search to forums and read some other posts of people that fell victum to the exact same problem as I did. This actually is a very common griefing loophole in the forums. It is easy to fix and should be addressed, its a wonder it hasnt been addressed yet.
Epitaxial
Tue Feb 01, 2005 12:13 pm
#8
Skurr wrote:
I agee with your above post absolutely. Unfortunatly not everyone has the gumption to act in the same regard. And regardless what GarVa and others post, the star rating (AND FOR THE LAST TIME *****NOT**** FORUM RANK BUT THE ****POST STARING SYSTEM****)DOES MATTER to alot of folks that take part of SOE forums. I for one take (or took) pride in helping others, enjoyed asking questions, and voicing my opinion on wrongs within the forums. And when you post something to come back and see that someone rated your post poorly with no explantion is like a slap in the face. And to take it a step further for someone to go and one star ALL your posts is even worse. You can almost here the 11 year old giggling as he one stars each and every post you have ever made. And regardless what other opinions about it there IS a large part of the forum community, noobs and veterans alike, that take issue with this. Scroll back to previous posts and look how many have posted questions concerning this One Star griefing issue.
As far as your comment about the auction, I again have to echo something I have posted a couple times already. You may have a good item at a good price but ONLY A FOOL would not question why a person was one starred and ONLY A FOOL would not be sceptical concerning the individuals crediablity and/or honor in sales. The star rating DOES marr an individuals reputation, especially if you take part of the forums on a regular basis. And to ignore it would be foolish.
ONCE AGAIN the flaw is no accountability.
I understand your reasons and am not disagreeing with you.
One of the reasons I don't pay attention to the star system is due soley to those few who seem to care aboutit yet do everything they can to clutter up the forums with nonsense off-topic spam posts. I don't 1-star these people because quite honestly it just feeds their egos to post more off-topic spam. There's enough crap on the forums as it is now...
I would think it should be easy to remove the star rating system since you can disable it your preferences. Change it so everyone's account defaults to a Rating Style of NONE and can not be modified.
Epitaxial
Tue Feb 01, 2005 1:37 pm
#9
Ok. I never pay attention to the star rating system because I rely upon what I know of that person rather than a star rating system on some forums. It's pretty easy to pick out on who's serious about something [ie: auctions, etc]and who's here to just spam the boards with nonsense.
coronula
Tue Feb 01, 2005 2:04 pm
#10
If it were technically possible they could just limit the frequency with which you could give a star ranking. One star per hour wouldn't be unreasonable at the rate I generally would give a star rating. However, I tend to read in blocks and it is conceivable that I would want to give two or three legitimate starts within an hour.
Perhaps a better option would be to allow only a specified number of star ratings (say 4-5) ina 24 hour period. This would not only make griefing more difficult, it would increase the actual value of stars. If they were limited in number people would hopefully dole them out more wisely.
Message Edited by coronula on 02-01-2005 03:06 PM
Slayermat2
Wed Feb 02, 2005 4:33 pm
#11
They do have a way to deal with "one star bandits" that abuse the system.
I am not one to cause trouble on a forum or abuse such things. Reason being, is that it serves no real purpose. It may give one that moment of joy to one star every post by a person, but that soon fades and there is nothing left. Also, it may be because I am older and a bit (not a lot :smileytongue
more mature,
more mature,With the above said though, I too gave one star to every post by another SWG player on the forums here. No reason to get into why I did it, that is not the point of this post. Just look at my past posts if you really want to know. If you do though, you should notice that I was mature about the whole thing (aside from the one stars).
Anyhow, I lost at least two forum rankings ( it may be more but I can not find a chart to tell for sure) and also lost the privilege of giving stars. I can no longer give 1 star, 5 stars or anything in between. What the duration of this is, I do not know. It may even be like a -1 DOT and will never go away. Only time will tell.
WookieIsshe
Thu Feb 03, 2005 7:21 am
#12
Skurr wrote:
I appreciate the stars, thanks, but Im still going to push this issue i didnt realize how big it was untill I took the time to search to forums and read some other posts of people that fell victum to the exact same problem as I did. This actually is a very common griefing loophole in the forums. It is easy to fix and should be addressed, its a wonder it hasnt been addressed yet.
I agree, I am also a victim of a group or individual one starring all my posts. I think that either the star ranking system or a revamp needs done soon. I also believe they need a tracking system in place to find and identify the one star bandits and to publicly shame them.
AllyaEcati
Thu Feb 03, 2005 7:27 am
#13
I'm pretty sure they've changed thewaystars workand havenot said anything. I did some testing last week and found that 1*'s and 5*'s, ect. in large quantities do not effect ranks. If you look real close, you'll see what I mean. It's funny because it looks like they do, so all those bandits are now one-starring for nothing. I've never gone through someone's post history, so there's no reason why this would only apply to me.
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