FAKE Karma - again

[Christian Czaia _Decadis AG_]

Hey,

we had this issue a while ago but people still don't seem to understand the principles behind the Answers system...

The user Nitram or his answers have been voted up by Martin Jerome Raj D resulting in about 1.000 Karma points just today. Supporting peers is one thing, manipulating the system another...

Cheers

Christian

[MJ · Accepted solution]

Hi Christian,
We will investigate this and take appropriate actions. Though you are free to moderate answers to your capabilities, I would request you not to downvote any answers of Nitram, since we are not certain (yet) what the relation is between the user accounts of Nitram and Martin Jerome Raj D. The behavior of the account Martin Jerome Raj D is suspicious and abusive nonetheless, I have instabanned this account.

[MatthewC]

Thanks Mick, we'll be good, I promise! haven't got the spare time to chase accounts anyway ;-)

[Dennis Kromhout van der Meer]

Hey all,

I just rounded up my investigation and I was able to confirm with a 100% certainty that these accounts belong to the same person. With that in mind, we'll keep the duplicate user suspended, reached out via email to Nitram and increased our attention to this behavior. We're looking to build in better prevention mechanisms into future releases of Atlassian Answers, please email me at dennis@atlassian.com if you have any questions.

Cheers,
Dennis

Ps: his karma level has been adjusted now to the level before he gamed the system.

[Radu Dumitriu]

I think you should add a second points system. Since the antonym of karma would be "free will", how about "free will points" ? LOL

[Dennis Kromhout van der Meer]

Duly noted, his karma level has been adjusted now to the level before he gamed the system.

[Ramiro Pointis]

I went to Nitram profile... Unbelievable...

[Radu Dumitriu]

@Mizan

A possible explanation is here: https://answers.atlassian.com/questions/167111/atlassian-answers-and-its-superheroes

[Radu Dumitriu]

Heh. It happened again. https://answers.atlassian.com/questions/109720/is-it-fair-to-create-another-user-or-ask-your-mate-to-vote-you-for-some-karma

[MatthewC]

I think it will always happen to some extent. You can see groups of people who who frequently appreciate the work of each other. I'm sure I've benefited from it from time to time when an answer lends itself that way. We're all members of the community and pull support from different areas.

Sounds like I need to work harder and be smarter!

[Radu Dumitriu]

You cannot prevent it, I agree. It's all about common-sense and fairness. Some people simply do not have them, either by education or by nature.

Voting only by comunity is wrong (it measures popularity). Voting only by a selected group of people is wrong (oligopoly). Having the balance between the two is an art.

But in any case, there's no system created by humans which cannot be breached.

[Mizan]

Even I had reported this here https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/ANSWERS-1123

[MatthewC]

Would Atlassian investigate or would we community police his answers? even voting them down again wouldn't reset the Karma correctly

[MatthewC]

Tha's got to be abuse at best & fraud at worst. I guess if Karma is worth something then peopel will seek to abuse it. The question is, when does the abuse devalue the karma?

[Christian Czaia _Decadis AG_]

I know that this isn't a real question but it should be addressed anyway ....