What I mean is that people could have an account answering questions, and then other accounts being used to just upvote the answer, giving the user's main account a ridiculous or at least unfair reputation. I know that there are measures in effect to PREVENT this from happening, but it is still relatively easy to make "bot" accounts and use them. Use MSE for a couple of months and get the required 15 rep, and then just spam upvotes.
This is just speculation.
$\begingroup$
$\endgroup$
7
-
11$\begingroup$ These are called sock puppets, not bots. And there is nothing you can do to prevent them; but there are ways to find them and suspend the users responsible (and also removing the ill gotten reputation). $\endgroup$– Asaf Karagila ModMar 1, 2017 at 5:20
-
4$\begingroup$ What Asaf said. We detect and delete/destroy sock puppet accounts on a regular basis. We have the tools for this job. We do welcome assistance! If you suspect somebody is trying this, flag a post where you think something strange happened, and explain your suspicion. We can then investigate. $\endgroup$– Jyrki LahtonenMar 1, 2017 at 6:41
-
$\begingroup$ @JyrkiLahtonen "we have the tools for this job". Certainly NOT! Recent experience proves otherwise (as you know from our recent offline discussion).. Even poorly disguised sockpuppets that vote on each others accounts and are obvious to experienced users of this site fail to be detected by the extremely weak SE tools. Meanwhile rampant sockpuppet armies continue to farm votes, making votes mostly meaningless. $\endgroup$– Bill DubuqueMar 1, 2017 at 16:52
-
$\begingroup$ @BillDubuque I concede that we probably don't catch all the fishy voting. But in the case you refer to the votes did get cancelled by a member of the staff. $\endgroup$– Jyrki LahtonenMar 1, 2017 at 17:12
-
4$\begingroup$ @asaf, the one I came to dislike was not voting on much, just asking many (contest or contest prep) questions, deleting them and posting again. The odd part was that sometimes the original and sock puppet would trade, one would post, delete, then the other would post. So, not designed for points, rather designed for extra attention on a flood of contest questions. $\endgroup$– Will JagyMar 4, 2017 at 0:58
-
1$\begingroup$ Possible duplicate of Bad questions from new users immediately getting (sometimes multiple) upvotes $\endgroup$– awiebeJun 17, 2018 at 21:44
-
1$\begingroup$ @Jyrki The converse is richer: how to stop SE (gamification) from making users into (rep) bots? $\endgroup$– Bill DubuqueFeb 2 at 22:10
Add a comment
|