25 upvotes, 2 direct replies (showing 2)
View submission: mod tool: sockpuppet detector
^(I can only assume the sub you're speaking of is /r/ebola. Just wanted to say it.)
This is so creepy. I was thinking of this exact thing a few hours ago. I do a lot of database work and make a lot of reports that do comparisons like this, though not usually on a 1:1 basis. More like a grid of results. Lead-generating software, that kinda thing.
I have a plethora of ideas by which you could compare user's data, but I've also got a fundamental problem with it used as a tool as you've described.
If you want to ban a user, ban that user. No mod needs an excuse. That's how the system works.
But you're looking for an "evidence-bot" to justify your actions that you *already wanted to take*, and that's not how 'evidence' works. You say it here:
I want to be able to put in 2 different users into a web form..
So you already suspect these two users, and now you want evidence to back it up. They're apparently not breaking other rules, else you'd ban them for that. The problem with calling this 'evidence' is that you could make an app say anything you want. The only reason to do this is to 'avoid argument', but the argument just becomes the percentage itself. Where did it come from? Why this ratio, and not that?
I mean if it is so *blatantly* apparent as to make you think you need to automate it, surely you could do it yourself at least *once*. Open a spreadsheet, download the two suspect user's data from the API and compare it. If it's a big problem, surely it wouldn't take long to gather evidence of such a thing. Any reasonably accurate percentage is going to be based on *a lot* of data any way. If it's not, it wouldn't *be* accurate.
That's all besides the point though: the fact that you're going to manually enter two users to compare shows a glaring bias, or at the very least a huge risk of it. You say it here:
.. so we can ban people with some reasonable evidence..
You don't *need it*. Just ban them. You're looking to build a robotic 'sockpuppet' to act as your scapegoat.
That's ironic, and kinda fucked up.
Comment by [deleted] at 18/10/2014 at 06:46 UTC
8 upvotes, 2 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by clickstation at 18/10/2014 at 15:26 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
You don't need it. Just ban them. You're looking to build a robotic 'sockpuppet' to act as your scapegoat.
You think it's fucked up that a mod wants to have some proof before banning someone and not just doing it on a whim? .... Wow.