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"Spam" users rating pictures, never seen before


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<p>I must say I have never seen this pattern. Recently I upload the following picture:<br>

<a href="../photo/9542612">http://www.photo.net/photo/9542612</a><br>

In the first hours of the rating process, 6 registered users rated the picture. All of them registered in photo.net March 14, 2009. 5 of them have no profile or pictures of their own, just ratings. It seems to me that the same person made allof this users and is abusing the rating system for some reason.<br>

I have no way of knwoing when the ratings were made, but the definitive proof of abuse would be that the 6 users mae the ratings in a short period of time.<br>

Anybody has seen this before?<br>

Please chekc the profile of raters for yoursevles.<br>

I reported this suspicious behavior to photo.net.<br>

Carlos Rodriguez</p>

<p> </p>

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<p>Hi Carlos,<br /> My own view is that photo.net could be a bit more proactive about this issue. e.g. Why not disallow the privilege of rating images to those people who choose not to upload any photo's of their own? Better still, why not disallow anonymous ratings, or at least give the rest of us the opportunity of blocking anonymous raters from our own uploads? We're blocked from rating a photo with a '7' if the photographer has recently felt that one of our photo's deserves a '7', so why not put a limit on the number of times an anonymous-no-portfolio rater can dish out 3/3 or 4/4 ratings? And so on.<br /> There is absolutely no question in my mind that the overall atmosphere of photo.net suffers from its refusal to deal with people whose sole objective seems to be targetting a certain kind of photographer with low ratings. I've suffered from it for years and my portfolio would be a whole lot larger if that wasn't the case. In the past week or so, I've come across a number of others photo.net users who are pretty sure the same thing is happening to them.<br /> I'm not so stupid or conceited as to believe that everyone will enjoy my kind of image! I have my own style, and some people are not going to like it one bit. But neither am I so naive that I can't spot a deliberate attempt to consistently lower a person's average ratings.<br /> The vast majority of photo.net contributors are talented, fair-minded and positive people with whom it's a pleasure to associate. As is often the case with some so good, the true photo.net experience is being thoroughly spoilt for a number of us by a few rotten eggs.<br /> I hesitated before adding this response to your question, because I know the kind of response I'm going to get from some quarters. But I have to say, I don't really care any more!<br /> Thanks for raising this issue. I, for one, appreciate it!<br /> Kind regards,<br /> Chris<br>

P.S. Two of the the people who rated your image 3/3 rated this picture 4/4. http://www.photo.net/photo/9541971</p>

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<p>Carlos, I think you are worrying too much about the activities of other photo.net users. One of the things I value about this site is the relative freedom for anyone to come onto the site and participate. This ensures a very active and interesting community. At one end of the spectrum there are people who abuse this freedom, but if you recognise them as such, you can ignore them. And if all they do is place low ratings on your photos, what possible harm is there in that?</p>
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<p>if nothing else...it's the principle of the matter Brian. if the activities of other photo.net users affected only them...it would be one thing, but that's not the case. i realize, as I'm sure that Chris does...that any complaint about the ratings system will be met with complaining about the complaining, and some (not referring to you) will mock those who put <strong><em>any</em></strong> importance on the ratings system. but as long as a system is in place...every effort should be exhausted to insure as best as is possible...that it is not and cannot be abused. there has definitely been some "bot" ratings going on of late. i did a little experiment with this last week. i put a photo in the critque forum and as soon as i did...a 4/4 rating came up. i deleted the photo and posted again...same result, an immediate 4/4. I did this four or five times just to see if this would continue to occur...and it did. i can't believe that the same rating would repeat over and over...each time, showing up almost immediately after posting. i know all the arguments for why the anonymous ratings are allowed...but i think that there has to be a way to get around them...for we all know that the option to rate anonymously has done exactly the opposite of what it was intended to prevent...the ability for people to retaliate against specific members who (for instance) had the guts to rate there photos low, and/or offer a criticism that they found to be offensive. the anonymous ratings option is one of the main reasons that people are hesitant to offer criticism...because if they do, all the offended photographer has to do is go to the person's portfolio and start handing out 3/3s in retaliation. i believe that there are some people who rate anonymously to avoid retaliatory low ratings from those they've given low marks to...but i think those people are only a very low percentage of those who rate anonymously. the solution i like best in regard to dealing with this ongoing dilemma is what Fred Goldsmith suggested not so long ago (and I don't think it was the first time that Fred or others had suggested it)...and that is, that <strong>the photographs posted for critique/ratings would be posted anonymously</strong>. then...anonymous ratings wouldn't matter so much. there would continue to be jerks who give out low ratings for their own warped pleasure...but the possibility of directing those ratings toward specific individuals would be all but eliminated. i've been hearing that this issue is being "worked on" ever since i joined PN in March, 2007...but have yet to see a single change.</p>
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<blockquote>

<p>"My own view is that photo.net could be a bit more proactive about this issue. e.g. Why not disallow the privilege of rating images to those people who choose not to upload any photo's of their own? Better still, why not disallow anonymous ratings, or at least give the rest of us the opportunity of blocking anonymous raters from our own uploads? We're blocked from rating a photo with a '7' if the photographer has recently felt that one of our photo's deserves a '7', so why not put a limit on the number of times an anonymous-no-portfolio rater can dish out 3/3 or 4/4 ratings? And so on."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Chris - Interesting and understandable rant, but unfortunately it has little to do with the facts in this particular instance. But I understand your frustration. :-)</p>

<p><em>Why not disallow the privilege of rating images to those people who choose not to upload any photo's of their own?</em> -- You really think that would stop these trolls? If such a foolish requirement were in place (since when did uploading a gallery make anyone better qualified to rate photos, or less inclined to rate low), these trolls would simply steal some photos from the web and upload them to their "gallery". One of the recent fake accounts even uploaded a "me portrait" to their member page.</p>

<p><em>Better still, why not disallow anonymous ratings, or at least give the rest of us the opportunity of blocking anonymous raters from our own uploads?</em> -- Not going to happen I think, at least the first part. Anonymous ratings came about as I'm sure you well know solely because of previous deviant misbehavior when all ratings were public. Furthermore, all of the bogus ratings that were removed a couple of days ago, and this current round of bogus ratings (which by the way are NOT just 3/3, but everything from 3/3 to 6/6), are *direct non-anonymous* ratings.</p>

<p>As long as the site remains open to the general public where anyone is free to join and participate, and that is as I understand it both the philosophical and financial goal of the site, then these trolls are unfortunately going to be here until they get bored and go play somewhere else. Photo.net does try deal with them when they are found, but unfortunately it will be a never-ending battle that is unlikely to ever be won completely. Every road block you put up is just another challenge for these twits, and they apparently don't mind spending months planning their rating-bot bombs. The latest round of bogus accounts appear to have been dormant since mid March when they were created until they were unleashed this past week.</p>

<p>While I understand and sympathize with your frustration, ranting about it here actually serves to help feed the ego of these twits, since getting people worked up is exactly what they hope to accomplish. They are no doubt reading and following the various recent posts on this subject with a self-satisfied smirk on their face. Best to leave them to wallow in the sewer that is their sad, pathetic lives and not let them know they got to you.</p>

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<p>"Every <strong>road block</strong> you put up ..."</p>

<p>Apparently the photo.net filters think "r-o-a-d-b-l-o-c-k" (as one word) is a code word for "a-d-b-l-o-c-k", which is a dirty word here, and my first attempt at posting the above response was rejected ("please back up and try your submission again"). This is a perfect example of what happens when you try to create r-o-a-d-b-l-o-c-k-s to keep out the cheaters ... it only serves to frustrate and *annoy* legitimate users. I had to do some detective work and re-read my response very carefully to find out why the h-e-double-hockeysticks photo.net thought I was suggesting the use of a-d-b-l-o-c-k-i-n-g software.</p>

<p>I wonder if this will go through ... :-)</p>

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<p>Craigslist has instituted a policy where, before you can begin responding to any ads (and in order even to post an ad), you must key in a captcha verifiable couple of matching words. It takes only an instant, only has to be done once per session and has alleviated a lot of the bot situations they've been experiencing. I used to get many spams immediately after posting an ad. Those have stopped. It means that a human would have to be on the other end of the rating keyboard. I believe some sort of captcha thing was once initiated on PN for anonymous ratings, though I haven't encountered it recently and have done some rating over the last few weeks. I still try to rate when I can because ratings determine visibility in the TRP and I'd just assume have my own tastes represented as the tastes of others. At the same time, the rating system is so need of revamping that I know it's mostly an exercise in futility until the site makes improvements.</p>
We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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<blockquote>

<p>"I believe some sort of captcha thing was once initiated on PN for anonymous ratings, though I haven't encountered it recently..."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>It is still there in the "Rate Photos" anonymous queue, which is probably one reason why this latest round of bot ratings are direct named ratings, via presumably the Critique Forum. I had not rated any photos for months, and in the past presumably because I was a long term rater with a history I seldom saw the Captcha (every 50-100 photos). Now I get it with the very first photo, and then *every* 20 photos thereafter (which doesn't exactly encourage me to continue). Yet another example of how having to put stuff like this in place to keep out the a**holes only serves to penalize those who play by the rules.</p>

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<p>Hola Carlos, realmente es molesto que tales seudo fotografos, den su voto y luego cobardemente se escondan atras del anonimato. Ultimamente mejor solo pido criticas porque de los votos no confio mas, en efecto hay algunos que inclusive como tu lo señalas no tienen fotos y otros ni siquiera han tomado fotos del tema y te califican mal. Yo diria que hay que vivir con esto y que mejor pongas tus fotos solo para critica. Recibe un saludo cordial desde Mexico // Salvador </p>
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<p>there are bots involved which are hard to track, but the team is working on it. You can run but you can't hide when it comes to people trying to screw up the internet<br>

http://www.photo.net/site-help-forum/00U1cd<br>

http://www.photo.net/site-help-forum/00U1bb<br>

Let's let the guys fix the real problem instead of making all kinds of rules. It's a lot of work finding the patterns working through a huge database. <br>

Or maybe people just don't like your pictures :) I know they don't like mine! I'm the king of one 3/3 ratings.</p>

 

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