Voting Security Discussion

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RationalMadman
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If you live in a city or in a VERY rural area (both will fit this) look at the area it says you are from if you use your internet for the first time that day and it's a time when many in your nation would be using it. You will notice the 'area' it says you are from is most likely a neighbouring town.
RationalMadman
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The reason a very rural area fits into this, is they literally have no servers at all from there. If you live in some real village and/or farm-heavy area of Texas, you have literally 0 servers from your area. They are always built in sets of 999 and located in areas that either are very busy or have enough areas around them to make it worth.
RationalMadman
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Also fibre optics run on a totally different set to the cheaper servers, so if your area hasn't yet upgraded (by force) to make fibre optics mandatory-status available, that 999 doubles up and even then, IPv4 is evolving but the problem is it's hard for humans to read an IPv6 address (it involves both letters in both cases and numbers to read and decode) so things are transitioning to handle more, it's just not that necessary yet.
RationalMadman
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Last thing to note is that corporations and business-level IP-giving-process is totally different. They have a permanent, dedicated server in the area and can easily have the same last 3 as each other for the same area as enough will be permanently different between them so if one corporation were to harass your website or whatever it's easily discernible from another and that IP is their non-stop IP so it would be very stupid of them to do that.
Ramshutu
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@Castin
Well it's up to you debaters as to how much of a loss that would be. You're the ones who'd be losing voters. 

There may not be many of us non-debating voters. Axing us might not be a huge loss. 
I agree with this sentiment.

These restrictions are intended to prevent sneaky sock puppets and nefarious voters from creating accounts to vote on their own debate. As far as I can tell, there are three ways a relatively lazy individual would do this now:

1.) Create an account. Vote. Few messages, few posts, no debates.
2.) Create an account: flurry of activity, vote. Long delay - Flurry of activity, vote.

and possibly 
3.) Create an account: flurry of activity to establish minimum standard. Vote.

Any restrictions should be targeted at those behaviours, not actual active members we know aren’t sock puppets.

If someone has established themselves as a consistent unique member, I would suggest they never lose their voting rights unless they’re just terrible at voting.

I would say
- 500 posts in the forum that aren’t just “blah, blah” and posted all in a day. OR
- 5 debates over at least a two week period that aren’t just forfeits or not attempting to genuinely debate, OR
- Special dispensation by the mod team after review of your account.

Castin
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@Ramshutu
Got a bit of whiplash there, heh. I thought you were agreeing that getting rid of voters who have never debated wouldn't be a big deal. I take it you are in fact against that. I wouldn't mind losing my voting rights for the sake of security, if that was necessary. From what I see, it just probably isn't.

I also think the effort of reading through a whole debate is enough of an obstacle for potential voters to overcome -- the additional requirement of waging at least three in-depth debates yourself might drive off new participants entirely. And new prospective debaters sometimes dip their toe in the water by being a voter first.
David
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@Castin
Got a bit of whiplash there, heh. I thought you were agreeing that getting rid of voters who have never debated wouldn't be a big deal. I take it you are in fact against that. I wouldn't mind losing my voting rights for the sake of security, if that was necessary. From what I see, it just probably isn't. 

I think you got to keep things in balance. Someone like you who proves to the moderator team that they're a worthy member should certainly be allowed to vote. On the other hand, allowing new members to instantly vote have proven to create integrity issues. 

This is why this discussion is needed.

David
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Here's a new thing that I'm going to start doing. There have been numerous cases in the past week of new members casting vote bombs. In response to this, I will delete the vote and revoke their permission to vote. After that I will contact the user and inform them about the COC and the standards that we have. 

Here's a proposal: We have a badge that you receive by reading the COC. I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to make someone read the COC before voting. If Mike can make a badge when you read it, I'm sure he can make it so that you can't vote unless you read it.

What do you all think? 

3RU7AL
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@Castin
I wouldn't mind losing my voting rights for the sake of security
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

- Ben Franklin
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@David
Here's a proposal: We have a badge that you receive by reading the COC. I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to make someone read the COC before voting. If Mike can make a badge when you read it, I'm sure he can make it so that you can't vote unless you read it.
Good idea.  You might even require a certain number (or combination) of badges before voting privileges are initially granted.
Ramshutu
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@David
A primary concern is that you prevent new voters being able to place votes on debates.

Depending on a medal that can be earned by clicking on a link, is not a barrier.


RationalMadman
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@Ramshutu
>scrolls to bottom of a page
>is qualified to vote
#atleastweruledouttheretards

David
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@Ramshutu
A primary concern is that you prevent new voters being able to place votes on debates.

Depending on a medal that can be earned by clicking on a link, is not a barrier.

It's not a barrier IMO if we make it clear that they have to read the rules and COC in order to vote. It takes 3 seconds and they can't claim they didn't read or know about the TOS. 


Ramshutu
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@David
The issue is not noobs who don’t know the voting rules. It’s people - a person - creating sock puppet accounts or otherwise voting in the last minute of the debate and changing outcomes of debate.

If you could remove votes after the debate has ended - it would be a non issue.

David
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@Ramshutu
Mike is working on that. Unfortunately, it'll be a bit difficult. Even after that update, it will only apply to debates after that update. Mike probably won't be able to let us delete debates post voting period like the ones magic ruined
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@Ramshutu
If you could remove votes after the debate has ended - it would be a non issue.
Except for the extra work for the mods.
David
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@3RU7AL
Except for the extra work for the mods.

The work isn't the issue. The biggest hurdle is working with the ELO system and the way Mike has it coded
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@3RU7AL
I wouldn't mind losing my voting rights for the sake of security
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

- Ben Franklin
Seems a bit dramatic to apply to an internet website.

Why did I say "internet website." Are there websites that are not on the internet, Castin? Tell me where are they?
RationalMadman
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@Castin
Because your point was that it's just the Internet, not real life and this is a website so your brain used Internet as a synonym of 'safe-zone' or 'playground' to highlight the sandbox-like nature you were trying to imply a website has.

Alec
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@Castin
I wouldn't mind losing my voting rights for the sake of security
How would people win debates?
RationalMadman
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@Alec
She meant her, specifically, as she may not meet the 'had 3 debates' criteria. She didn't mean every single voter.
Alec
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Oh.
Castin
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@RationalMadman
Because your point was that it's just the Internet, not real life and this is a website so your brain used Internet as a synonym of 'safe-zone' or 'playground' to highlight the sandbox-like nature you were trying to imply a website has.
You're a sharp chap.

She meant her, specifically, as she may not meet the 'had 3 debates' criteria. She didn't mean every single voter.
Thx, yes.
RationalMadman
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@Castin
Sharpness, sexual appeal and moral integrity; three things I am brutally high in, sharpness the most, moral integrity the least of the three.

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@David
Lots of the users here are coming from DDO. If there are new requirements for voting, then someone from DDO should be able to qualify to vote based on their DDO user account history. It would be simple to verify that by having the user send a PM from their DDO account.
David
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@Death23
i could support that 
Vader
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@RM So ur second is sexual appeal
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@David
You need a self-regulating panel of voters.  The panel itself is reponsible for kicking bad voters off and inviting new voters on to the panel.  There is no automatic qualification for voting - you have to apply or be invited.

The site owner can of course dissolve the panel if it fails to maintain the standards required.

Panel members receive a notification or e-mail when their vote is cast.  Thus any faux vote will be picked up.


Barney
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@David
In addition to my previous suggestion (make people take an automated voting test), what about adding an extra state to the process map? The extra state would be before the current final one, giving admins a few days of voting lockout before any debate goes to the finished final state.
3RU7AL
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@Barney
In addition to my previous suggestion (make people take an automated voting test), what about adding an extra state to the process map? The extra state would be before the current final one, giving admins a few days of voting lockout before any debate goes to the finished final state.
Good idea.  Or make all votes "provisional" until approved by a mod.