One bad apple...
From URBAN DICTIONARY ( http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.ph... )
Troll: One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument
- - -
Unfortunately, as the result of a single individual's downvoting madness yesterday ( http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/51... ), we were left with no choice but to immediately implement "Producers Only" voting in the Gulch.
In an attempt to bury member comments, a rogue troll was creating new accounts with the sole purpose of downvoting everyone taking part in the discussion... accept of course for the trolling accounts (EdvardHovanesian, AbdulRahmanKarimi, MertonDabney, IlanRosenberger, LouGranger, CaitlinOClery, JackieEly, LorenMuttoone, PatHaden, DaleTipton, ShelbyGarner). Thankfully, a few members flagged the discussion and alerted us to the suspicious activity. Our reactive attempts to mitigate the damage however were proving to be an exercise in futility - we would suspend one account, they would create another.
Because we had very little in place to stop and/or prevent further activity, the simplest, quickest and most effective solution was to "turn on" Producers only voting. Several months ago, as the result of another Gulch conversation, we had actually gone through the exercise of writing code that would accomplish this so the code was already in place, just not active. Last night, it was simply a matter of turning that code on.
This move to Producer only voting should in no way be interpreted as punishment of guest members. Most guest member activity is honorable, and valued, and we may reinstate guest voting in the future. Until we have mechanisms in place to more effectively combat this type of intrusion however, Producers only voting will remain in effect.
Scott
EDIT: 03-03-2014: Unless the voting privilege was explicitly revoked from your account, if you have 100+ points, you can now vote. Thanks to blarman for the suggestion ( http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/51... ) and of course jbaker for making it happen so quickly.
Troll: One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument
- - -
Unfortunately, as the result of a single individual's downvoting madness yesterday ( http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/51... ), we were left with no choice but to immediately implement "Producers Only" voting in the Gulch.
In an attempt to bury member comments, a rogue troll was creating new accounts with the sole purpose of downvoting everyone taking part in the discussion... accept of course for the trolling accounts (EdvardHovanesian, AbdulRahmanKarimi, MertonDabney, IlanRosenberger, LouGranger, CaitlinOClery, JackieEly, LorenMuttoone, PatHaden, DaleTipton, ShelbyGarner). Thankfully, a few members flagged the discussion and alerted us to the suspicious activity. Our reactive attempts to mitigate the damage however were proving to be an exercise in futility - we would suspend one account, they would create another.
Because we had very little in place to stop and/or prevent further activity, the simplest, quickest and most effective solution was to "turn on" Producers only voting. Several months ago, as the result of another Gulch conversation, we had actually gone through the exercise of writing code that would accomplish this so the code was already in place, just not active. Last night, it was simply a matter of turning that code on.
This move to Producer only voting should in no way be interpreted as punishment of guest members. Most guest member activity is honorable, and valued, and we may reinstate guest voting in the future. Until we have mechanisms in place to more effectively combat this type of intrusion however, Producers only voting will remain in effect.
Scott
EDIT: 03-03-2014: Unless the voting privilege was explicitly revoked from your account, if you have 100+ points, you can now vote. Thanks to blarman for the suggestion ( http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/51... ) and of course jbaker for making it happen so quickly.
