Probably, but they have a mod forum on the site, where I assume they talk about stuff like this. I'm willing to bet they have a specific thread for talking about future mods, among other things.
Oh yeah, I didn't think about that. Although, the mods probably don't get a lot of administrative activity either. That's what I assume.
The majority of spam comes fro users who are serfs? The kind who don't even look at the rules since they don't last very long? Stricter rules won't help clear these people out.
Anyway, for those desperadoes who want merits, post in the newest games. I got half a dozen last December/ this Janauary doing that for fun. Also, at least try and use a dictionary/thesaurus; I read the comments from time to time and almost all are just crap even when it's obvious the people are trying to earn a merit.
The majority of spam comes fro users who are serfs? The kind who don't even look at the rules since they don't last very long? Stricter rules won't help clear these people out.
I agree, a few months ago someone started spamming my profile, + 5 other people's profiles for AP
The majority of spam comes fro users who are serfs? The kind who don't even look at the rules since they don't last very long? Stricter rules won't help clear these people out.
No, more from AP farmers. Not necessarily stricter rules, but more harsh consequences.
Something seriously has to be done about the game comments. Forget merits, there are at least a handful of AP farmers in the top 100 alone who are getting away with leaving short thoughtless comments on games without consequences, not to mention that there are plenty of others who are within a couple thousand points from it who have gotten there from doing the exact same thing.
Since there's so much spam in those game comments now, it's basically impossible to weed out every single game comment spammer. The best solution would just be to delete all the nonconstructive and nonspecific thoughtless comments, but even that doesn't seem like it's being done. It must be taken into consideration that, no matter how tedious it is, every game comment page must be checked fairly often and cleaned out if needed. Otherwise you give every new user the mentality that it's perfectly fine to spam your way into the top 100 if nothing is going to be done about it anyway.
Mods, this is not your fault and I don't want any of you to think I'm criticizing the way you do your job. There are only 2 or 3 of you who log in fairly frequently, so there's no way you'd be able to delete pages of spam from 2600 games regularly while still maintaining the forums and the rest of the site. That's understandable. The problem is, there are only 2 or 3 of you who log in fairly frequently, and that clearly isn't enough people for a site with thousands upon thousands of comments flooding in every day.
This has been an issue for too long and it can't be ignored for any longer; the team needs to be expanded one way or another. It isn't fine the way it is, and it will help to appoint new people to the position. You guys are doing a great job and I don't want you to think otherwise, but there just aren't enough of you to maintain the mass amounts of people. 5 robots programmed to delete spam wouldn't be enough; there are just too many people.
If I see more people on the team, I will have faith that the site is heading in the right direction again.
More mods isn't going to solve anything. It really doesn't matter how much mod presence there is in the game comments. Regularly babysit the comments and issue warnings for an extended period = no difference. Massive spam removal across the board = no difference. Constant spam removal = no difference. You'd think it'd get better, but it doesn't.
People like to come here to play games, make their 'quick feedback', and leave. They aren't here to make comments or rate games for AP. I'd venture to guess that 99.9% of users aren't. I'd throw in another two nines if I knew how many active user accounts we had that actually comment/rate. The ones that do spam for points often get banned. The really bad ones get butthurt because they think they get banned over something silly and never come back. Or they get all those points and never come back anyways because there's nothing to keep them here.
We still look at the comments. We still give out merits. We still delete spam. We still deal with problem users. There's nothing to discuss or even worry about. The only real solution is to change to a better system, which is what should happen once AG3 comes. We're all just waiting for AG3 to kick so you guys can upvote/downvote or like/dislike or whatever to your heart's content. I'm sure there was a point where we stopped caring because AG3 was supposed to come out soon, but yeah. At this rate, I'd say February 2013 is probably the earliest, because leaving a coming soon sign up for so long is silly, right?
Why then, did AP farmers actually get punished when there were a few more active mods on the team, whereas now they're going completely unnoticed? I could easily give a list of blatant game comment spammers, but their spam comments are now so far back behind pages of more recent "quick feedback" that linking to enough of their comments to convict them would be more of a pain for both the reporter and the reportee than just expanding the team and waiting for someone to clean out the game pages.
You can't honestly say that more mods on the team isn't going to change anything if it hasn't even been tried. Adding one new moderator every two years isn't "more mods", especially if at least one becomes inactive every year. That's a loss of half a moderator each year (or something like that). Is it really impossible to think that there's a direct correlation between this annual net loss and the site quality that's been plummeting since 2009?
If the quality of peoples comments grew then it might not be a problem. For example you do not get a merit for just saying things like "Great games" or short comments. Most people can't be bothered to write a long comment just to get a merit.
Why then, did AP farmers actually get punished when there were a few more active mods on the team, whereas now they're going completely unnoticed? I could easily give a list of blatant game comment spammers, but their spam comments are now so far back behind pages of more recent "quick feedback" that linking to enough of their comments to convict them would be more of a pain for both the reporter and the reportee than just expanding the team and waiting for someone to clean out the game pages.
You can't honestly say that more mods on the team isn't going to change anything if it hasn't even been tried. Adding one new moderator every two years isn't "more mods", especially if at least one becomes inactive every year. That's a loss of half a moderator each year (or something like that). Is it really impossible to think that there's a direct correlation between this annual net loss and the site quality that's been plummeting since 2009?
I second this. Couldn't have said it any better myself. I applaud you, good sir.
Why then, did AP farmers actually get punished when there were a few more active mods on the team, whereas now they're going completely unnoticed? I could easily give a list of blatant game comment spammers, but their spam comments are now so far back behind pages of more recent "quick feedback" that linking to enough of their comments to convict them would be more of a pain for both the reporter and the reportee than just expanding the team and waiting for someone to clean out the game pages.
Because we had an active community admin investment? We don't like not having a community admin any more than you guys do. Because we had users who bothered reporting these sorts of spammers? The fact that you don't when you can report these blatant spammers reflect rather poorly on you. It doesn't matter what page they're on. If it's there, it's there. Just report it. Or flag it if you can't be bothered to stop grinding your axe. It's less of a pain to report it than to have someone go in and delete it. No one likes to volunteer themselves to deal with spam. No one.
It's not worth having people just to manually delete spam. Nobody wants to delete spam. Going through pages deleting specific spam or spam in general is a poor use of time, especially if it's more efficient to automate spam removal system or leave it to the community through a voting system. This current system sucks.
Is it really impossible to think that there's a direct correlation between this annual net loss and the site quality that's been plummeting since 2009?
What site quality are you talking about and why are you implying causation?
The fact that you don't when you can report these blatant spammers reflect rather poorly on you.
If each one of these blatant spammers has an average of 2000 spam comments, even if there are only 10 of these users in question, that's 20000 comments to report. 200 full game pages of spam comments scattered across 2600 games. That's one hell of a lot of links to report.
Does flagging actually do anything nowadays? I remember it didn't used to, but I'll try it if you insist it will do me some good. Just as long as it doesn't look like I'm abusing the feature.
No one likes to volunteer themselves to deal with spam. No one.
Who is talking about volunteering? Since when has that ever been an option?
I would be glad to help clean up this site. The problem is many of the old users hate me for past events. So instead, I decided to go through and properly rate/review every game on this site. It will take a few months, but if you want a fast way of earning merits, this is the way to do it.
I asked about flagging comments a while back, and a staff member replied saying flagging only works when a large number of users flag one comment/post.
