REQUEST REPBOT CHANGE to avoid abuse

[DiceMechanic]

All known abuses of repbot:

1) New players do not know it exists or how to use it.
2) The formula of weighting a complaint = a voucher is in question.
3) Players with large reputations can more easily abuse with little to no penalty
4) User's can create multiple accounts to abuse.

I'm limiting this scope to improve on #2 and #3

In real life, a company or an individual also has a reputation - and in real life, that reputation can be destroyed by even one complaint. If a person has stolen once before, it doesn't matter that he does not steal 2 times for every time he steals - if he steals even once, he is tarnished.

HOWEVER, in the repbot system, if a player drops one game for every 3 games he plays, he can end up with a reputation of infinitely good, given he's playing players with all equal weights. In fact, if he were crafty enough, he could drop 99 out of 100 games, and still have an infinitely high reputation. How? He drops with a user experience = 1 99 times (and we assume he is complained on EACH TIME for that matter) - his rep is -99. But, if he plays one match til completion and gets a voucher (he can just ask for it, many of the times, people will vouch them), against a user with just 100exp (up to 10,000), he will have a positive rep of 1-9999..

The question is, does he deserve this positive reputation?

The resounding answer, by every sane person, would be no.

Case #2, a person with a large reputation, say 400,000 (extra large here), can drop even more games. In fact, he can play 30 top users (10,000 exp or more) and EVEN IF they ALL complain, will still have a 100,000 rep.
This may rarely, if ever, happen, HOWEVER, it stands to reason, that at such a reputation, if they have to go somewhere during a match they are losing - what is their incentive to play it again? Furthermore, when they have such a rep and request to finish later, do you complain on him until he returns? (I do, but how many others?)

Such a system makes for easy abuse. How to easily solve this?

As in real life, if someone complains, they are given far more weight than someone who vouches for them. Your rep is constantly earned, and even a little tarnish degrades it, regardless of how high and mighty they are revered.

So should be with the repbot system. People tend to only complain against real jerks, or more often, against droppers. But people vouch for any reason, they were asked to vouch, they enjoyed the company, etc. Do 10 games played by a person who was nice = 10 times he was an #ss#o## and or 10 games he dropped?

If you do not believe so, then please comment.

My suggestion:

1) LIMIT REPUTATION. If your rep is never vulnerable to complaints (as it virtually is at 100,000 or more), there is less incentive to resume games, and more incentive to be an #ss#o## or not comply with good sportsmanship. Again, if there is no safeguards, or little safeguards, it WILL be abused. This is simple Murphy's Law at a work, "anything that can happen, will happen".

2) As in real life, complaints should carry far more weight. In real life, it's hard to build a good rep, and constantly needs work. On fibs, it's actually EASIER to build a good one than a bad one.

Old formula : Complaint = Experience of user complaining. Voucher = Experience of user complaining. Both are currently capped at 10,000.

NEW FORMULA:  Complaint = Experience*10, capped at 10,000, Voucher = Experience, capped at 2,000. 
Why this formula? Users who are new should have very valid complaints, but not TOO valid. But at the same time, experienced users should not be given TOO much power either.. It strikes a balance between the two, it also makes complaints far more weighty. And why not? If you drop, you should need at least 5 people to vouch you to make up for it, should you not?

Discuss...

[socksey]

The weight of the vouch/complaint is based on experience up to 10,000.  I don't see any point in giving newbies more weight than their experience because we don't know them yet and don't know how to judge their vouch/complaint yet.  The system in place has worked pretty well for all these years.  I always check rep first and then list.  I look at the list and if players I trust are on the vouches part, I think the player is probably OK.   

MissManners has taken care of the long list of saves for anyone, so, I don't really check that any more.   

Patti improved the abuse factor by her demand changes which have been implemented.   

Your suggestions are not quite clearly an improvement to me, so I hope nothing else changes.   

socksey



"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.  Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin

[Krazula]

I use the repbot list command. If a user has 1 complaint for every 3 vouches I won't play him, I certainly won't play if he has 99 complaints for every 1 voucher. I won't even usually play if he has more than 5 complainers unless he has very high experience or I recognize some of the complainers as people that abuse the system. Repbot works fine for me, I've not been dropped in well over a year. Still I'm not opposed to tweaking the maximum value of a vouch or adding a multiplier to the power of a complaint, I think it could make the ask command more meaningful. For me I'll continue to use list either way though because it gives me the most data and I can use that data to draw my own conclusions. So any changes to the ask system of the reputation score won't effect me.

[DiceMechanic]

Socksey: If this is even a valid response,(as I know we do not get along well), I should note that your only complaint is against inexperienced users - which doesn't make the 'old way' the 'best way'. The old way is simply the first version, just as today's government is built on a long list of trials and errors of previous governments.

Responding to the inexperienced part:  the new formula still recognizes this. Inexperienced users' complaints are far less weighty - but still VALID. In fact, it is quite often new users who experience the majority of drops, and as inim has pointed out as well, their current ability to complain is very low. Even with this system, their complaints are low, but grow rapidly in validity.

Inim also suggested that you can only complain against a user who has a saved match. Therefore, you can't abuse people because you do not like them. It's not perfect (as then why can you vouch someone you simply like?).

What may be better than all this, is to have a drop ratio, if one could be calculated, and have that weighed on bellcurve against all other users. So instead of anyone having to do manual input, you simply see how they stand up to other fibsters, the problem is, i don't think it can be calculated on who dropped without a lot of manual work by patti - hence the need for repbot in the first place.

[DiceMechanic]

I agree, I too use the LIST command, and that the repbot ASK command is not to be taken seriously (that's why i suggest the change). However, I have played two users in the 400,000+ range both who dropped me, both have long lists of vouchers, and even calculating their complaint to vouch ratio is very time consuming to the point of why even bother to play them?  

The problem is, even though I complained, and though i've played over 1000 matches on fibs (having experience just around 6000), my complaint did ZERO damage to their reputations.

Limiting max reputation also seems like a good idea, else, as you can see from my experience, one can just coast and be a jerk at their leisure.

[Krazula]

The problem is, even though I complained, and though i've played over 1000 matches on fibs (having experience just around 6000), my complaint did ZERO damage to their reputations.

That is not true, at least not from my perspective. If I tell repbot to list a player and I see "player complainers: dicemechanic" I'm going to not play them, unless you're the only complainer or one of very few. When using the list command you're not drowned out by all the vouchers, the complaints are listed on top I read those then I make my decision.

[socksey]

DiceMechanic, I wasn't aware that we do not get along.     Did I miss something?  I'm sorry if I cannot agree with you here, but I hope that doesn't make you think that we cannot get along.  I don't even know you really.  I just checked my stats and we have only played one match and I won.  Is that a reason to think we don't get along?   

The list is the key.  If you know the players, it can be truely enlightening.  It's not the total rep that is so important, although it is just added data.   


socksey




"Personality is to a man what perfume is to a flower." - Charles M. Schwab

[DiceMechanic]

I appreciate the input.

Krazula: I'm not disagreeing about the list, I'm trying to limit my scope to the "ASK" command only. I agree, if I see a player that I know and respect, who has complained on a would-be opponent, I too reject them (all else being equal). However, for the purpose of the ASK command, what's the point in having ask if there's just LIST? For new players, LIST won't help them much, if at all. Also, I am guilty of not using LIST all the time when a players rep is very very high (like 400,000). Not often, but it happens, and I still get burned. The point is, to refine the ASK command to make it more relevant. Right now it's like a probability of say 55%-60% truism.

Socksey: This isn't relevant to the discussion at all.

[diane]

I dont see 'leave things as they are' in the list so I havent voted. As far as I can see, everything is open to some sort of abuse, so to me is what is least abusable, and easiest to account for is the best compromise. It will always be part of a 'dropper tool kit', rather than a one stop shop.

We have newbies who find repbot and think it is ok to complain against me because I won, for example. We have the character here who complains because I use repbot. [and anyone else]. The complaining against a better player who wins, because they appeared so lucky they *must* be cheating is very common with newbies.

For those reasons, I would not like to see the complaint being worth more then the corresponding vouch at an experience level.

[DiceMechanic]

I agree that people complaining because you beat them is also an abuse. Yet at the same time, if they are inexperienced, their abuse does little, even under the new system. This hardly dents your rating Diane And of course, if they complain against you, your complaint against THEM could be as much as 100 times stronger - so they have LESS incentive to complain on you - right? It doesn't dent your score, but you can really take a chunk out of theirs. If they are still complaining about you beating them and have 1000 experience (the point at which they reach the maximum complaint) - then they sure ought to have done this before and their reputation should show it. So really, this should not affect GENUINELY reputable people. Even if it can be abused as such, is it worth allowing droppers to gain just ONE voucher (under the current system) to make up for their drop?

Well, to avoid stupid complaints, Inim suggested you can only complain against someone you have a saved game with, which I agree. The whole point of the repbot system is first and foremost, to thwart dropping, perhaps secondly to thwart assholes (which can easily be shut off with blinding for that match, then villain them afterwards).

Even if it's a saved game only match, only a manual checking of the score will suggest who dropped, and patti won't want to be apart of that constantly., so having too high of complaint, if both players complain can also be a problem.

Remember, this is simply an attempt to really punish droppers more, nothing else. Right now, it's easily gamed.

[ah_clem]

We have newbies who find repbot and think it is ok to complain against me because I won, for example.

Another good reason not to play newbies.  (c:

[socksey]

If they are still complaining about you beating them and have 1000 experience (the point at which they reach the maximum complaint) - then they sure ought to have done this before and their reputation should show it. So really, this should not affect GENUINELY reputable people. Even if it can be abused as such, is it worth allowing droppers to gain just ONE voucher (under the current system) to make up for their drop?

Well, to avoid stupid complaints, Inim suggested you can only complain against someone you have a saved game with, which I agree. The whole point of the repbot system is first and foremost, to thwart dropping, perhaps secondly to thwart assholes (which can easily be shut off with blinding for that match, then villain them afterwards).

Even if it's a saved game only match, only a manual checking of the score will suggest who dropped, and patti won't want to be apart of that constantly., so having too high of complaint, if both players complain can also be a problem.

Remember, this is simply an attempt to really punish droppers more, nothing else. Right now, it's easily gamed.

You're still confusing me here, so please bear with me while I try to get things clear. 

The maximum vouch/complaint is 10,000 unless it has changed.  You have mentioned a 1,000 max several times, so is that one of your proposed changes or are you confused? 

And, maybe you also want persons with low experience to have a higher complaint factor?  I can see no benefit from doing that, mainly because newbies have too limited a knowledge of the site, Repbot, the players, the circumstances that cause players to leave a match, etc.  As you said, even a manual check of a players saved matches only suggests, it does not by any means determine who dropped the match.

Patti will absolutely not support any idea that causes her any work having to do with Repbot IMHO. 

I've been searching for an hour or more and didn't find the thread I was looking for to refer you to.  Don't know if you read any of the past Repbot postings or not, but this subject has been beaten to death, reopened and beaten to death again.  If you haven't read any of the archives, you should give them a look.

socksey



"Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it." - Henry David Thoreau

[DiceMechanic]

This is tiresome.

Socksey, let me sum it up for you, this has all been said above:

Proposed algorithm:  10*experience = complaint (max 10,000) -- experience = vouch (max 2,000).

Hence, any mentioning of 1,000 experience MEANS that under THIS NEW proposal, they will be able to complain to the max. Got it? 1,000 * 10 = 10,000. If anyone thinks 1,000 experience is still a NEWBIE, maybe they have been on FIBS so long they have forgotten. 1,000 experience = 1,000 1-pt games, 333 3pt games, or 200 5-pt games. A 5pt. game takes, on average, 15 minutes to play. 200 * 15 minutes = 50 hours. Who on earth doesn't understand what a complaint is after 20 matches, let alone 200? Furthermore, why would someone with 10,000 experience get TEN TIMES THE COMPLAINT POWER. Are they 10 times more likely to understand repbot than a person who's only spent a couple months of their free time in life on FIBS? (50 hours).

Time does NOT equal intelligence, or the need for justice. There's always going to be a-holes who complain for whatever reason, but we're talking about MOST PEOPLE.

Secondly, perhaps the reason the post is re-opened so much, if your claim has any validity whatsoever, is that people definitely think it's unfair.  Inim, the main programmer of the repbot system (maybe the only one), has wanted to see this subject debated.

And thirdly, I never said Patti WOULD be open to manually doing anything. In fact, I said specifically she would not.