I just noticed this happening today. I checked all of the top albums this year and most of their ratings suddenly went down, and that's because of several 1 ratings appeared out of nowhere during the night.

Something should be done about this, not because of stupid reasons as "my favorite band isn't 1st place omg". The rating system should reflect the real overall opinion of the users on the album (duh), and it should help other users decide whether they would want to give the album a shot or not (among other factors, of course).

Metal Storm has a measure put in place to prevent this. It's called Erik M. and it tirelessly scours the site looking for inconsistencies which it then reports in the shoutbox.

Bwahahahaha! ^Best rating abuse response EVAR!

Syk - miss you lad, I really do

Written by Azarath on 11.10.2014 at 19:55

Metal Storm has a measure put in place to prevent this. It's called Erik M. and it tirelessly scours the site looking for inconsistencies which it then reports in the shoutbox.

The thing is, I kind of retired. I need someone to fill my shoes. Sometimes, when a case is very bad, I tend to report it, but I'm really trying to pass the torch to others nowadays.

Written by Erik M. on 11.10.2014 at 22:13


The thing is, I kind of retired. I need someone to fill my shoes. Sometimes, when a case is very bad, I tend to report it, but I'm really trying to pass the torch to others nowadays.

Bad english said he would do it

There are a bunch of brownshirts running around the site reporting names to me on a regular basis. some are legit, some are people who have cast like 11 votes... nothing funnier, though, when someone with 85% of their 400+ votes cast are 9 or 10 whining about someone doling out a couple of 1's.

abuse happens. it is unavoidable. just spend time checking out the top 15-20 of all time and look at hte low votes.

submit serious offenders.

We have a "contributor" rank for reviews and publications, why not have a "database contributor"? Aside from just having more perms to edit the band/album profiles, they could be in charge of vote abuse moderation. Just an idea; no bad ideas in brainstorm...

Written by Alex F on 04.12.2014 at 14:47

We have a "contributor" rank for reviews and publications, why not have a "database contributor"? Aside from just having more perms to edit the band/album profiles, they could be in charge of vote abuse moderation. Just an idea; no bad ideas in brainstorm...

unofficially we have , even officially we hade

There is such thing as datebase cheaf
IMO Thyrice was 1th, what was after him I dunno, then there was Troy, Johan, Lex, Troy , Lex

non staffers there was Array, now also MzNice or what is Bosnian guy name , Ruchasko do also database and do it good
I do it also

but database is more bands lne up, albums, video, act req, and so on

as site now needs most is alias/aka option to be fixed, we have tons of aka, but ... it will take years to fix

Anyone who can prove me wrong please do, but considering we have negative and positive vote abusers, doesn't the score tend towards it's "real" score in the end? At least in most cases?

Also...

Written by Azarath on 11.10.2014 at 19:55

Metal Storm has a measure put in place to prevent this. It's called Erik M. and it tirelessly scours the site looking for inconsistencies which it then reports in the shoutbox.

Actually Erik retired from this. Ilham has taken up the torch in his place.

And this "duty", were it to fall to an official person would actually fall under the realm of Moderation, not Db. Unfortunately, this specific issue isn't really deemed huge enough to feel the need to create an official role for one single person to fill and dedicate all their energy to snuffing out rate abusers.

But y'all are more than welcome to take this upon yourselves and report your findings here for those of us with the necessary perms to look into and nuke if we agree that said user/account is guilty of vote abuse.

Be the perfect kind of thing for an ambitious user to sink their teeth into, among other things, Alex.

Written by psykometal on 04.12.2014 at 21:45

Actually Erik retired from this. Ilham has taken up the torch in his place.

Erik van der Mols was just a shadow of the Syk what was damn great vote abuse hunter

Written by Bad English on 04.12.2014 at 22:17

Erik van der Mols was just a shadow of the Syk what was damn great vote abuse hunter

This is the most beautiful sentence I've ever seen you post.

Written by Ilham on 04.12.2014 at 23:08

Written by Bad English on 04.12.2014 at 22:17

Erik van der Mols was just a shadow of the Syk what was damn great vote abuse hunter

This is the most beautiful sentence I've ever seen you post.

why?

Written by Bad English on 04.12.2014 at 23:41

why?

Just accept the compliment will you .
Okay okay, it was funny, it was true, and not total gibberish.

Changed the name of the thread to make it more accurate.

This Syk guy sounds like a badass mythical ninja.

Written by BloodJuNkie on 05.12.2014 at 13:02

Written by Ilham on 05.12.2014 at 02:08

Written by BloodJuNkie on 05.12.2014 at 01:57

Yeah i know what you mean. Of course it doesn't deserve 10 but if people give it 1 then giving it 10 is fair. My true rating is 9 but i expected voting abuse while i was voting!

Changing your own vote to counterbalance someone else's vote is also vote abuse. It's the exact definition of it.

I know it is, but in my mind i wanted the album to take the average rating that it deserves. Sometimes i feel the album is overrated by me and i change it later though!

You have to understand that this is a vicious cycle. If you don't give it your true vote, and inflate it, another guy will come and give it a 1 in order to bring the rating down. And another guy like you comes in and then gives it another inflated vote. Do you see where I'm getting at?
I don't understand why it's so hard for people to accept that an album they really love just doesn't click that much with other people. It is your opinion and only your opinion that the score it deserves should be higher, why would you manipulate the rating - which should be a reflection of the sum of opinions of all the voters - to make it closer to YOUR opinion? I think it shows a lack of perspective in music and very little acceptance of other people's tastes.

Written by moonflash on 05.12.2014 at 03:12

This Syk guy sounds like a badass mythical ninja.

meh. i wasn't given the nickname Duke Nukem for nothing. i blew up more multis or sandbaggers than peeps around here will ever be aware of. i've been called all sorts of names and combos of names and slurs i didn't even know existed.

i will be writing a column on this i think, as some people are really good at ferreting out serious abusers (they found one this week with 600+ votes cast and a 9.92 average. none of this 6 vote nonsense) and mulits, while a lot of others submit a lot of anything.

clues of what to look for so you don't waste your time, or mine.

Written by moonflash on 05.12.2014 at 03:12

This Syk guy sounds like a badass mythical ninja.

'

Nope he just blabbed in the shoutbox but never amounted to a single thing. ANd his perception of what was a vote abuser was totally off.

Potential vote abuser: http://metalstorm.net/users/mr.grimm/profile

Written by Uldreth on 26.12.2014 at 02:18

Potential vote abuser: http://metalstorm.net/users/mr.grimm/profile

Potential my ass! Dude signed up 6 days ago and dished out almost 1000 2s - most of which were used to tank several whole discographies - and had an average rating of 3.57. You really can't be more obvious than that. Nuked and warned.

Graciás, amigo.

^ And It seems the same guy is voting (and abusing) again =]
Unless he was locked somewhere with Phobia playing on and couldn't pause it.

Written by Karlabos on 26.12.2014 at 19:58

^ And It seems the same guy is voting (and abusing) again =]
Unless he was locked somewhere with Phobia playing on and couldn't pause it.

Yup. Already took care of him. For some reason he's neglected to read my warning PM, so I've sent him a second and given him a reason to check his messages.

Possible Chartbusting: http://metalstorm.net/users/album_votes.php?user_id=138409

Possible Superfan/Chartbuster: http://metalstorm.net/users/album_votes.php?user_id=107154

This next one I'm not sure of at all. The dude's apparently very active (or was) and has very, very topheavy voting. If I were to go according to that article, definitely superfan: http://metalstorm.net/users/album_votes.php?user_id=12981&r_order=rating

I'm sorry, but there is no way that everything Judas Priest has ever touched is a 10: http://metalstorm.net/users/album_votes.php?user_id=153394

So am I doing this right, more or less?

^ Number one Judas Priest fan.
Imo only the first one you linked (Rbarac) would classify as abuse. It could be that the other ones just voted for the albums they really liked and/or they are very easily impressed.
But let's see what the staff says

Who cares about all the Judas Priest ratings? The dude gave "Blackwater Park" a 2. That's enough for a banishment.

Written by Darth Revan on 27.12.2014 at 04:18

Possible Chartbusting: http://metalstorm.net/users/album_votes.php?user_id=138409

Possible Superfan/Chartbuster: http://metalstorm.net/users/album_votes.php?user_id=107154

are 't those 2 same guy?
He gave best Metallica albums 1
weird both game same Metallica albums 1

Written by Darth Revan on 27.12.2014 at 04:18

Possible Chartbusting: http://metalstorm.net/users/album_votes.php?user_id=138409

Possible Superfan/Chartbuster: http://metalstorm.net/users/album_votes.php?user_id=107154

This next one I'm not sure of at all. The dude's apparently very active (or was) and has very, very topheavy voting. If I were to go according to that article, definitely superfan: http://metalstorm.net/users/album_votes.php?user_id=12981&r_order=rating

I'm sorry, but there is no way that everything Judas Priest has ever touched is a 10: http://metalstorm.net/users/album_votes.php?user_id=153394

So am I doing this right, more or less?

Looking into them now. Only suggestion I could offer up front is to use url tags on the provided links; makes my job slightly easier. #IAmLazyFucker

Written by psykometal on 27.12.2014 at 20:46

Looking into them now. Only suggestion I could offer up front is to use url tags on the provided links; makes my job slightly easier. #IAmLazyFucker

Sorry about that, I honestly didn't think of it at the time.

Written by Warman on 27.12.2014 at 11:33

Who cares about all the Judas Priest ratings? The dude gave "Blackwater Park" a 2. That's enough for a banishment.

I found all of these people via looking at the people who gave absurdly low ratings to the top 200. I can buy thinking Blackwater Park is a 2 (I really, really, hate Opeth). I can buy thinking Symbolic is a 1 even though I love Death. However, when the person does both AND gives Demolition, the absolute worst Judas Priest album (aside from maybe Rocka Rolla) a 9? That's when my lights went off. Same for one other person there, every Korn album except for one was a 10 (and that last one was a 9) and yet Rust in Peace is a 1.