Got bots?

Bpope03 · Post by **Bpope03** » Sun May 22, 2016 8:10 pm

might wanna throw in a voting mechanism to combat bot voting. Lost city shard is definitely guilty. I think UO Evolution jumped 500 votes overnight so I suspect them too, though their votes might be legit, they got the pop to maybe do that.

Archived topic from UOG, old topic ID:95, old post ID:282

Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Fri May 27, 2016 2:03 pm

I'll be honest it's something I wanted to do and just never got around to it. There is a very basic mechanism to stop voting too fast, but it definitely can still be automated. I know there are some shards that fudge their online count as well, but not much we can do about that, there is no way to actually get the online count except for what the server tells us, and it's not really complicated to code it so it sends a bigger number.

Archived topic from UOG, old topic ID:95, old post ID:283

Bpope03 · Post by **Bpope03** » Wed Jun 01, 2016 1:38 am

a: your asking a website hoster
a: to tell people that they cant give him extra hits?

:'( n/m

Archived topic from UOG, old topic ID:95, old post ID:285

tangar · Post by **tangar** » Mon Apr 17, 2017 12:43 pm

Yeah, it discredits rating

UOgateway - my favorite shards rating and it's sad that it has cheaters on top.

I think the best way - temporary ban for servers who doing bot-voting.

Archived topic from UOG, old topic ID:95, old post ID:310

Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Thu Apr 20, 2017 11:29 pm

Don't worry I hate the idea too, but that's why it allows to sort. Perhaps I need to change the default sort order. Votes are more of a "nice to have" thing but they are meaninglyess in general. There will always be people who try to cheat the system. It's also hard to prove, I would not want to punish a shard for a false detection of cheating. Ex: Youtube does this all the time by shutting down people's channels for no reason because it "triggered" something. So it's a fine line to walk on.

One thing I have been thinking is to simply graph the votes. People can then draw their own conclusion.

But just want to reassure everyone it is something on the back of my mind, I admittedly don't do much work on this site but it's something I do want to revisit. I just have lot of other projects on the go too such as my own shard, but even that kinda took the back burner.

And yes my shard is actually listed too and no there is zero advantage hard coded or anything.

I have toyed with idea of ad space where someone can advertise their shard on top though, but I'm not sure yet if I want to do that. I don't want to make it look like I'm "selling out".

Archived topic from UOG, old topic ID:95, old post ID:312

tangar · Post by **tangar** » Sun Apr 23, 2017 12:40 pm

What about just adding google racapcha? It's easy to install and it would solve problem. Almost all voting websites already got it.

Btw, considering adverts... Google adsense only pays for 'clicking' at ads, not for showing them. So when bots doing a lot of votes - they do not give any additional $. On the contrary, bots making adsense ads having very bad CPC rating for your website...

Archived topic from UOG, old topic ID:95, old post ID:314

Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Tue Apr 25, 2017 11:12 pm

I hate relying on an external service, though it would be an easy fix. Perhaps something I can consider.

Archived topic from UOG, old topic ID:95, old post ID:317

tangar · Post by **tangar** » Wed Apr 26, 2017 3:28 pm

Would be really cool. As I said, imho uogateway is the most awesome server rating and it would be great to make it even better

Archived topic from UOG, old topic ID:95, old post ID:319

Falkor · Post by **Falkor** » Wed Jun 07, 2017 11:40 am

Unashamedly calling out the shard named UO SHARD. With an average of 7 online they managed to get over 200 votes yesterday alone. That is one seriously-dedicated playerbase!

Archived topic from UOG, old topic ID:95, old post ID:332

Yousef · Post by **Yousef** » Mon Aug 07, 2017 3:07 am

Falkor wrote: Unashamedly calling out the shard named UO SHARD. With an average of 7 online they managed to get over 200 votes yesterday alone. That is one seriously-dedicated playerbase!

Lol, those bots are taking over.

Archived topic from UOG, old topic ID:95, old post ID:338

Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Mon Aug 07, 2017 9:55 pm

Yeah I really need to start thinking about this more, just busy with other projects so have not had a chance to really look into it.

Server logs seem to indicate that a lot of these bots make little to no effort of masking the fact that they are a bot. I find that rather humorous. There's no point in me blocking them one by one though as they'll just come back, so I'll want to add a proper captcha. Probably end up just using Recaptcha or something.

I will be revamping my sites where everything ties into a single login, almost tempted to require an account to vote, that way there is one central point of authentication/check to prevent cheating. I would then use recapcha or similar service for the account creation. Not sure if I want to do this though, it may be annoying to have to sign up just to vote for a shard. And of course it does not stop people from creating a bunch of accounts.

Archived topic from UOG, old topic ID:95, old post ID:339

Falkor · Post by **Falkor** » Mon Sep 04, 2017 1:07 am

Woah - almost 14,000 votes by UO Shard in barely 3 days. At some point it's begging for a ban. That will invariably lead to a claim that unknown actors set up the voting bots to get them tossed. Did you notice they're hosted in the same room as this site?

I would rather our shard have one honest vote than a thousand fakes!

Wow. During my composition of this message they seem to have been de-listed. Talk about quick action!

Archived topic from UOG, old topic ID:95, old post ID:341

Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Mon Sep 04, 2017 5:45 pm

I saw that one. I have no immediate plans to start dealing with these as I need to come up with a proper system, but that one was on the completely blatant ridiculous side. I did not quite delist it but let's just say they won't be on the top for a bit.

Archived topic from UOG, old topic ID:95, old post ID:342

mysticdream · Post by **mysticdream** » Sat Feb 09, 2019 1:11 pm

I'd start a new topic, but it seems you still haven't done anything about this...

Interesting how shards with 4 and 8 average players can beat shards with 2-3x that many.

Assuming 1 vote per day, and a max of 15 players logged, Today is Feb 9th... (15 * 9 = 135 votes.) How does the 1st shard in screen shot get 167?
Also, every player votes every day, without missing one?

18 x 9 = 162, and they have 156. This is more realistic, but I think still a bit fudged.

Please implement your captcha, and/or other spam protection you've been thinking about for the past 2 years.

Archived topic from UOG, old topic ID:95, old post ID:431

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