giuseppe_miriello1

<a

href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=459611">giuseppe

miriello</a><div></div>

I do believe that many of us are facing robo raters problem these days and i saw many debatements on the matter... this is my point of view.

Robo raters ARE a problem as they destabilize the rating evaluation system, but this is an more issue for PN administrator rathern than us, as the main effect that we are seeing is a global growth in complaints for abuses: this translates in emails at the abuse system, thus this must be giving the PN staff headaches - they are attacking us to hit them.

PN says that the situation is quite under control, that the number of such bots is moderate, also there are procedures for automatic elimination... I admit this procedures seems to work when the account is abviously a bogus one.

If the rater is more subdle and post some pictures, enter a fake bio, high rates different kind of pictures (ex. nudes and landscape) instead of rating only nudes then automatic procedures fail and the deletion is submitted to the time and the judgement of PN staff (i guess).... it happened to report some possible abuse and sometime I had it deleted sometime not, also there might be the possibility it was not an abuse, but this is the kind of dubt a subdle rater would like to create. Also continuosly reporting abuses may cause the impossibility for the PN staff to read all the emails, virtually stopping the abuse report system - so we all should be in doubt wether reporting a possible bogus account is the right thing to do or not!

On the other side seeing who the rates are coming from is not of any help to us in this moment.... besides the fact that in the past the sistem allowed to see who rated who and how, and this generated tons of abuse reports the PN staff couldn't manage, we should consider that knowing that MR. X gave us a 3/3 or 4/4 is not bringing us anywhere, as if we report MR X, if he is subtle, he dissimulated himself as a possible good user and will not be blocked! And we cannot complain to PN for this, as banning indiscriminately would probably also ban legitimate users!

I don't believe that turning off rating would be of any sense either... if the top-photographers list was made up evaluating only critiques instead ratings, we would seen abuses of different kind... for example a picture that has 300 critiques of the kind: "well done pal, i love your work" - full stop!!!!

I think that PN will probably change the registration procedure so to force the use of a unique existent email address per user, two users with the same email wouldn't get password... probably this would limit a little the account creation rate. Also they would probably want to put a confirm code during first registration that cannot be read by robots, this would further slow donw bogus registration.

hi, in southern italy the word mafia literally means "strawsberry can" and it was a unity of measure! People initiated to link the word Mafia to a private organization that had (initially) the unique claim to be a para-governative judgement method as at the beginning of 1800 southern italy was ruled by the Borbonic Dynasty and they weren't able to properly take care of the whole territory, expecially isolated areas of sicity! Ironically (and incidentally) the definition of mate-groups, or tecnique-sharing group, or whatever is a way to designate a measure unit... so mafia could be one possible describing word (and hope no offense for all).

I do believe that the last comment is intresting enough, we are partecipating to a forum that has its own human dynamics and we cannot ultimately create "the absolute perfect method" to give the proper evidence to all people who deserve it: whatever method we decide to use there is always something that could be done to manipulate it; there are guys who think that altering the normal forum dynamics to gain in prominence is correct and a sign of personal success, there are guys that think it is a way to distort fair competition (if there is any), and there are guys who would just to learn but find it difficult due this dynamics.

Incidentally this is exactly what happens in real life human dinamics, and also it has strong ties with the way the historical mafia born: initially to protect sheperds and poor people from people who owned all the land and power, then it became a state into state, with its rules, its representative power, its justice, and its fight for internal power, finally it became a society on its own dedicated to protect affiliates' interests against anyone (poors and sheperds included).

these are just a bunch of ideas i wanted to submit to your consideration. Ultimately i think PN is good as it is. I would like use Critique Only forum to help people that are learning to get commented without being low rated thus destined to disappear, but I also consider that there are technical issues in realizing that.

regards

giuseppe