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Fanpop Duplicate accounts for pick/vote spamming

papa posted on Mar 24, 2008 at 04:24PM
Ok, I know there are other threads about this and that this is a problem we've been trying to resolve for some time, but I'm seeing increasing abuse lately which has made me grumpier than usual on this Monday morning.

I'm going to start getting more severe about handling users who are creating multiple accounts in order to abuse the system. It's not cool. It's not fair to the many honest fanpoppers (the majority of the audience really). It's distorting the results of picks, ratings and medals being awards and messing with the general integrity of the site.

It's also a big, big waste of our time to police the site in this fashion and deal with violators. Our team is small and we cannot build new features for everyone if we're too busy policing the site dealing with naughty behavior.

Please refrain from doing these things. We don't want to resort to more draconian solutions. And fwiw, duplicate accounts are not the problem per se. The problem is when individuals create a number of duplicate accounts (often a large number) for the express purpose of manipulating the results of a pick, voting up a piece of content and/or comment spamming.

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over a year ago dave said…
I'll have to follow up with papa's rant as I am sitting across from him and there is literally steam coming out of his ears. We've tried to be nice and just ban a lot of the fake accounts created by users to rate their stuff up or make fake picks or heck even talk to themselves in a forum or comment thread. But it's gotten out of hand and there will be consequences. We have permanently banned and in some cases completely deleted user accounts because of their violation of the Terms of Service and abuse of other users and the site. Fanpop is supposed to be a fun community, so why ruin it for everyone by cheating or being mean to other users? Thanks to all the awesome users on the site who understand what we're trying to do and support us each day!
over a year ago PkmnTrainerJ said…
Cool, cheers for adressing this guys. I think I would have had to held back a laugh seeing papa that angry though.
over a year ago kathiria82 said…
Haha, they actually thought they could get away with it. It`s hilarious when they try and deny it and I`m happy to call out as many people as I please. My link explains exactly how I feel. I hope the users who are abusing the system continue so they can get banned for good. :]
over a year ago germany123 said…
Thanks for addressing this..you might have noticed: last night got crazy at times..loads of reporting.
I just wish people would stop doing it because even if you report users and they get banned they just make more accounts...but if you guys find a magical technical solution you have my/our support!
over a year ago papa said…
Last night was crazy on 2 counts -- a lot of flagging and a lot of angry fanartists reporting unauthorized redistrubtion/non-attribution of content :-(
over a year ago amazondebs said…
exactly how do we report a user that we think is a false account?

and i would alos love to see papa with steam coming out of his ears lol
over a year ago aholic said…
Yeah, I know what, papa. It's still a little bit crazy there.

I think it's great that you are doing this, because it has been brought up many times here lately.

It was actually a bad thing that we reported it, because it ended up being the pick with most comments. As sad as it may sound, then it's actually not. We all ended up talking about where we should all meet for some pizza.
over a year ago papa said…
debs - you can either pm the fanpop staff or flag the user in question.
over a year ago amazondebs said…
thank you
over a year ago dazl said…
I love you guys!
over a year ago ineedcoffee said…
yea last night was crazier than usual, but at least I think most of us can tell fake users and we feel for you guys for having to deal with them.

but you are greatly appreciated, but I must say that I am sad to see the lila pick is gone to even though i was one who at first reported it because it turned into a great conversation between fanpoppers....:)
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