Abuse: use (something) to bad effect or for a bad purpose; misuse. Abuse: treat with cruelty or violence, especially regularly or repeatedly. Now that we have the official meaning for abuse out of the way, we can move onto our beloved Skyblock forums. I am using this thread, in case you wish to go view the thread yourself. "As a rule of thumb staff view 3+ ratings to one person in a relatively short period of time either positive or negative, as rate abuse." As nice as that is, that is not what abuse is. This is nothing but a tacky excuse to try and make people quit rating things in large amounts. Also, this simple sentence is tossing caution to the wind and saying, rather weakly, mind, that rate abuse has no real defined time frame and that it depends on the moderator. How are people meant to know whether they are breaking rules when there is no defined period of time? Is the cooldown ten minutes, an hour, a day? We don't know and almost everything could be 'rate abuse'. "The problem with this being the official rule is people will use this as a guide to get around rate abuse to help their friends achieve trophies or to abuse someone and not get banned by rating 2 an hour and so on. This is exactly why it's not defined as "one hour" but defined as "a short period of time"." While I applaud the attempt at trying to explain away the rule, it still does not make sense. Each offence should have a defined period that people are and are not expected to follow. We, the players, should be expected to follow such intense and hidden variables just for liking things. "It's very easy to rate someone 3 times by accident in one hour." Yes, it is, but this does not explain how rating someone three times within an hour is rate abuse. "Rating someone with the intention of gaining that person trophies is also abuse. If I were to rate someone 2 times because they said they needed 2 more likes for a trophy, that would be abuse of the rating system." Now we're finally getting places! Rating someone with the sole intention to grant them trophies is rate abuse as it is misusing the system. Rating someone's posts, which so happen to be more than three, in an hour, is not. If I want, I can go down my profile my wall and like every post I want and it would not be considered rate abuse because I like those things, or are you saying that I cannot use a feature on the forums? "Rating someone negatively without reason would also be abuse. (Bad spelling with no errors for example)" How? If I disagree with a post, I am free to express that via a rating. If I believe that a post contains bad spelling, I can rate that as such if I wish and it would not be abuse because ratings are personal opinions. "Rate farming is also a form of rate abuse. You can rate farm by posting statuses asking for likes. Posts like these are not allowed and will be deleted. Warning points may also be applied." Makes sense. Asking for likes would fall under misuse of the system as likes should be earned, not asked for. "Rating specifically only one person repeatedly could also be seen as farming/abuse." How? Maybe that person posts things that people like. This has to be the only server where something so minor and unimportant is actually moderated so ruthlessly and horribly that no one even understands what rate abuse is. -- I have gone through the thread that is meant to be defining rate abuse and I am more concerned and confused than I was when I first opened the thread. Nothing was defined and the only I saw was a bunch of made up things that do not even apply to 'rate abuse'. There should be no undefined cooldown for a period where you can and cannot rate things. That's absurd. If people like something, they should be able to like it without fear of a moderator coming along and seeing three likes in an hour or two, or ten depending on the moderator, and bans for it. That isn't fair to anyone.
I agree. Recently I was just banned (one month, appealed) for accidentally rating several posts on my profile from one person. I didn't consider it abuse, per se, because I was not intentionally trying to give away ratings for any reason. I simply like to 'like' all the posts on my profile. I think rate abuse should only be enforced when someone is giving away positives for the sole intention of boosting their rating count, for trophies or otherwise; or if someone is giving away negatives for no justifiable reason. And I definitely don't believe that the punishments should be so severe. I had just been banned for a month (which was appealed, but I digress), and then my ratings had been removed permanently until I had appealed that decision as well.
Ah, rate abuse. Excellent way to initiate a discussion. Thus, I would like to emphasize a point, particularly the blurb in bold: There should be a specific time period, as Sean said. If someone is going to take the time to periodically rate another user's posts, so be it. It will (should) be easy for a moderator to notice and issue an infraction accordingly. Even if the ratings are skewed to appear as if they're not on a schedule, it will (should) still be relatively simple to identify a single user giving another single user a disjointed number of ratings. Wait, there's multiple DIFFERENT accounts giving the same user ratings? This could be one of two things: 1) It could be several accounts of the same person, which are (should be) easily identified and disposed of, or 2) There is actually a group of people who agreed to inflate a single user's trophy points. In the latter instance, I will concede it would be more difficult to put all the puzzle pieces together, especially if the "skewing" tactic I mentioned earlier is employed. But to go to such lengths simply in pursuit of artifice is...despicable. Anyway, that's my two cents. Take it or leave it, not everyone stoops down to pick up coins they find on the sidewalk.
Ideally we would just punish if the ratings were just being actually abused. But, misconceptions get in the way, and it's honestly just impossible for every single moderator to handle that in the same perspective unless there's specific guidelines. Such as the 3+ in a short time frame. Obviously the main reason is so people don't spam eachother with ratings to get trophies and all. The guidelines are just meant to be there to give an idea. Many times users have given eachother 3+ positive ratings without the intention of actually abusing the system. Those times are the disadvantages to having specific guidelines and limits. My only way to back the system up is by saying: If you didn't break the rate abuse rule, please appeal. We understand people have the tendency to rate all posts on their profile and not realize they've given someone way too many ratings. We understand you weren't intentionally bumping this user up with positives. Again, it'd be ideal to only punish users for actually ABUSING the ratings; but, for obvious reasons, it's much simpler to have the specific rule in place. The staff team is compiled with people in ages ranging from 11 to adults. It's a Minecraft server forum, that's to be expected. Everyone can't be trusted to have the same perspective on what would be considered abuse and practically make the rule itself too messy to handle. I agree with you, but, yeah.
People get away with rate abuse by rating like one rating every hour or something, clearly abusing a loophole. I've got lots of disagrees on posts where there isn't anything to agree about, and people use the informative rating on the most useless posts. I also see people using the disagree rating as a dislike button in mod apps
The whole point is that 3 ratings in a period of time is flawed! If you don't want people to abuse 'likes' then remove it and be done with it. Who cares if someone has 1ooo likes or 10,000 likes. Does it matter if someone rates ten posts in ten minutes or over the course of the day? They're still rating ten posts and this system just makes them wait before they get banned. Then make that the rule and not three or so ratings because that's nothing but nonsense. Yes, they do, and they still get banned because the rules aren't even rules, more like a 'I haven't done much so I need to ban a few people for three days for nothing' system. You understand that people aren't doing it to make someone have a lot of positives and they're banned regardless because the rule or guideline is so loose that no one knows how to enforce it. A little bit of extra work never hurt no one and it would stop all the unfair bans that happen regarding rate abuse when the fault lies with the staff for not explaining it correctly. Don't use age when players cannot use it regarding maturity. Yes, it is a Minecraft forum, and that's why I'm so shocked people take rate abuse so seriously. Banning people for it is asinine when it effects next to nothing -- oh, my bad, a pixelated number on your profile. Unless people are making accounts to mass rate themselves, then I don't see why rate abuse is punishable at all. Does it really matter if someone goes down their profile and likes everything?
The trophy system is a big part of the forums. While some may not care about statistics and all, it's what people work towards on the forums. Abusing ratings to further escalate the forum rank ladder seems obvious to not allow. Just like selling things or doing things that can mess up the economy in-game, this is a similar situation. Unfairly earning trophies/ratings on the forums for not actually participating properly and such ruins the entire system of getting higher forum titles that represent your activity/dedication to the forums.
That's really the only part I can reply to. The rest is out of my control since I didn't create the rules and can't really speak for the server entirely, only for myself. Well, that argument really doesn't apply to this. That's a whole new argument. But - back to the point: Mods will punish if someone gives 3+ positive ratings, as that's what what is written in the rules and what we are taught to do. I can only speak for myself, once again; so, I will say I try to handle rate abuse situations, such as the ones that are unintentional, without dealing any punishment. If a situation can be dealt with without having to ban someone, that seems like the way to go. I was using age to point out how our staff team is a variety of different types of people. Different people see things different ways. I'm sure if the rule were revamped to the way you want it, there would still be people unhappy with it, they'll find ways to loophole, and moderators would not all be on the same page with how to punish for it. What do you think the rule, if changed, should be? What would be considered rate abuse? What would the line be in between abusing ratings and just liking friends posts? If you have the perfect solution, I would honestly like to know. Both of the ways I can think about the rule seems inevitable that users will see some aspect unfair or something.
ive been having conversations, and i would just like all the other persons posts out of habit, and now i have no rating perms hahahahah wowowowowow fix it
I got my perms removed because I gave out 3 disagree ratings and 1 went to one person, 2nd to someone, 3rd to someone else. What is rate abuse? As a rule of thumb, staff view 3+ ratings to one person in a relatively short period of time either positive or negative, as rate abuse. Yet the mod is being biased and won't give me a better reason.
When did this happen? They can't remove your perms for that. Yes you may give out more disagrees than the average person, but I highly doubt you were abusing them.
