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Cheating the Newschoolers Rating System

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00000000
Posts: 11075 - Karma: 82,508

Simply put, don’t do it. For those of you who've been doing it the past, we know who you are, and we've contacted a lot of you already. For those we haven’t -- please consider this your one and only warning. Questions, concerns? Drop them in here and I’ll try my best to answer them ASAP.


What we consider cheating:

- As a person, if you’re up/down voting a select piece of content (photo, video, news article, thread, post, etc) more than once. For example, if you give something a downvote, don’t log onto your alias/company account and give it a second downvote.

- Unfair downvoting. For example, downvoting content just to get yours ahead.

- Voting rings. For example, don't create a private cult which goal is to simply upvote each others content.

- Using voting services or software.

- And last but not least, anything we decide is cheating is cheating.


The process we use to find you consist of:

- Multiple automated checks of all uploaded content.

- Manual checks of the day’s top content (photo, video, and news).

- If something is flagged, we do a thorough investigation and gather infallible proof before making a final decision.


Why you shouldn't cheat:

- It’s wrong. We’re not going to go into too much detail about this point, because we feel like most of you are intelligent enough to understand that defrauding the system is wrong -- whether you're doing it for internet fame, monetary purposes, or just to screw over someone you don’t like.

- Everyone benefits from an honest system. Whether you're uploading or consuming content, everyone will benefit from a better Newschoolers.

- You’ll get caught. And we consider this the worst possible offense on Newschoolers.


What happens when you’re caught:

- We’ll nuke your ratings, permaban your aliases, and hit you with a 30+ day IP ban

- Harsher (including legal) consequences will be dished out if the situation warrants it.


How to get your content on the homepage, without cheating:

- Upload quality content & fill in descriptions.

- Share your content. Share it with your friends and family. Share it on all your social media profiles. This is absolutely the best way to help get your content upvotes.

- If you see a piece of content you enjoy, give it an upvote. The more people embracing the rating system, the better.

Jul 2 2013 10:17AM
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00000000
Posts: 11075 - Karma: 82,508
Bumping this in case anyone forgot about our rules!
Feb 20 2014 10:47AM
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cydwhit
Posts: 5070 - Karma: 43,008
I'm gonna take a seat in this thread, interesting stuff, thanks for doing all that you do rednames. Also I think requiring a comment to down vote is a pretty interesting idea.
Feb 20 2014 1:06PM
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.Rybak.
Posts: 9017 - Karma: 9,864
soo. who fucked up this time?
Feb 20 2014 1:52PM
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TimRiley
Posts: 1873 - Karma: 1,327
Pretty interesting kids care this much. I guess I could see people up voting their friends stuff and what not, but down voting other peoples media for their gain is such a dick move.
Feb 20 2014 6:32PM
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swoger
Posts: 607 - Karma: 655
Didn't realize kids actually cared this much about getting upvotes....
Feb 20 2014 7:03PM
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NinetyFour
Posts: 8650 - Karma: 13,409
Probably just a bump and a warning for the journalist and filmer programs when they go live. At least I'd assume so.
Feb 21 2014 1:06AM
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cydwhit
Posts: 5070 - Karma: 43,008
Yeah...no, check comments on a few of the recent top rated photos, including mine.
Feb 21 2014 1:35AM
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00000000
Posts: 11075 - Karma: 82,508
Kids probably care so much because there's a decent amount of money on the line if you're vying for a spot in the Yearbook.
Feb 21 2014 11:53AM
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.Rybak.
Posts: 9017 - Karma: 9,864
Yeah but they're pretty stupid for doing it because there's obviously a way you can check who's doing what.
Feb 21 2014 11:55AM
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cydwhit
Posts: 5070 - Karma: 43,008
Dang, better go take some more pictures then.
Feb 21 2014 12:07PM
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Nacho+
Posts: 3748 - Karma: 7,791
Random senario that I've seen a couple of times but what about something like this. Someone of facebook says "hey check out my new edit! Give it an up vote too!" Is something like that considered cheating, or is it not because its not making anyone up vote the content? Just a thought
Feb 21 2014 3:40PM
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NinetyFour
Posts: 8650 - Karma: 13,409
Telling you man:

Click for larger image

When the Nordica account went nuts I tried logging into it to see the ban reason. Ha, little did I know that made me suspect for logging in and going crazy with it. Luckily since I never had the password correct it was obvious that I didn't fly off the rails under their name.

@Nacho, I think posting stuff through social media is alright; if you aren't advertising your work to a degree then there's no point to putting the effort into producing content. When people start re-posting their own content and campaigning a picture, video, or article excessively it becomes a little weak in my opinion. In the end though, good content sells itself.
Feb 21 2014 4:17PM
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TomDavies
Posts: 788 - Karma: 5,295
does up voting your own stuff  count as cheating?
Feb 21 2014 11:32PM
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cydwhit
Posts: 5070 - Karma: 43,008
No, and neither does sharing it on FB, etc. at least that's how I read moose's post
Feb 21 2014 11:52PM
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nutz.
Posts: 3150 - Karma: 6,712
It doesn't, but if you have a bunch of alias's and you're downvoting/upvoting everything then that's cheating.
Feb 22 2014 1:13AM
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00000000
Posts: 11075 - Karma: 82,508
That's totally fine, and actually what we encourage you to do!

How to get your content on the homepage, without cheating:

- Upload quality content & fill in descriptions.

- Share your content. Share it with your friends and family. Share it on all your social media profiles. This is absolutely the best way to help get your content upvotes.

- If you see a piece of content you enjoy, give it an upvote. The more people embracing the rating system, the better.


Feb 24 2014 9:58AM
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TimRiley
Posts: 1873 - Karma: 1,327
Still happening. There are some really good new edits that have a lot of down votes.
Mar 9 2014 10:31AM
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00000000
Posts: 11075 - Karma: 82,508
I can only see so much! Post links to stuff here if you really think there is some shady shit happening.
Mar 10 2014 2:38PM
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John18_6
Posts: 7313 - Karma: 49,163
We need to ban those 12 year olds and their downvote cults.
Mar 11 2014 1:26PM
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paige.
Posts: 1932 - Karma: 924
I think the nature of the up vote/down vote system is that things will get down votes regardless. People want to give some sort of input so they aren't going to abstain from voting. However, they want to differentiate what they think is awesome from the pack so they won't just up vote everything either - this leads to down votes. Whereas with the old system I gave out primarily 4-8s and saved 9-10 to my favourite content, now I don't have that option. So things that I would consider in the meh range - maybe they're too common place, the lighting is off, the music is grating, I'm bored, whatever - are going to get a down vote. Basically if I wouldn't want to see it again it doesn't get an up vote. If it actually bothers me in any way it gets a down vote. That's not fraud, that's people with different tastes from yours selecting for what they think is good content. If everybody was good at rating content the ratio of up and down votes should give a result similar to the 10-scale eventually and we would get a ranking of material quality - but the problem is that when something only has a few votes a down vote counts for a lot. Things can't start at a 7 - they'll have to start at the 1 or the 10 end - and if they start with down votes it is unlikely they will be seen by enough people to fully recover.
Mar 11 2014 9:17PM
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00000000
Posts: 11075 - Karma: 82,508
Bump! I'm going on a tear this week and checking as much content as possible, both old and new...

You were warned!
Jul 21 2014 7:32AM
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El_Barto.
Posts: 11661 - Karma: 24,354
SFB is ther mastermind behind the downvoting.
Jul 21 2014 6:04PM
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00000000
Posts: 11075 - Karma: 82,508
Just a friendly reminder... we're always watching!

I just had to ban WordupProjects for not only using multiple aliases to upvote their own content, but using the same aliases to downvote a photo of JP Auclair so that their own photo would land POTD.
Oct 3 2014 4:00PM
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Turner.
Posts: 1987 - Karma: 11,892
MousseauJust a friendly reminder... we're always watching!

I just had to ban WordupProjects for not only using multiple aliases to upvote their own content, but using the same aliases to downvote a photo of JP Auclair so that their own photo would land POTD.


Oct 3 2014 6:40PM
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Mingg
Posts: 13977 - Karma: 49,303
MousseauI just had to ban WordupProjects for not only using multiple aliases to upvote their own content, but using the same aliases to downvote a photo of JP Auclair so that their own photo would land POTD.


That is beyond fucked and actually really pisses me off. What a sick way to show respect to one of the greatest guys in freeskiing.
Oct 3 2014 7:28PM
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S.J.W
Posts: 7609 - Karma: 31,185
MousseauJust a friendly reminder... we're always watching!

I just had to ban WordupProjects for not only using multiple aliases to upvote their own content, but using the same aliases to downvote a photo of JP Auclair so that their own photo would land POTD.


What a cunt. Such a shame as well because he put out good content I didn't think he would need to downvote others.
Oct 3 2014 7:55PM
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.Rybak.
Posts: 9017 - Karma: 9,864
MousseauJust a friendly reminder... we're always watching!

I just had to ban WordupProjects for not only using multiple aliases to upvote their own content, but using the same aliases to downvote a photo of JP Auclair so that their own photo would land POTD.


People are fucked.
Oct 5 2014 1:29AM
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