Spamming in Top contributor's list

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Yes, raising this topic again. @admin, please again look into the fact that every month, towards the end, the top contributors list almost see’s some random names popping up out of nowhere. This month for example, inovation123 has been found out as a case of this. I don’t know whether the users who are voting them in about are there friends or college mates, but how can you expect that a user reads the answer of another, all of which are also not displayed on the webpage of the website, and then read only his answer and upvotes them all in just 10 minutes. This is just utter nonsence in my opinion. There are many users who contribute to this community fairly and still sometimes can’t win laddus (a award given to top 5 contributors of every month) because you get some spammers in your way who win such rewards some hook or crook.

I think a plagiarism check on the top contributors list also should take place every month before awarding the prizes(laddus) to the users similar to the way cheaters are removed after every contest here. This would ensure fairness to all the users.

My honest request to the admin is to take care of such spammers and take necessary action against them.

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Likecs,

innovation’s case is obvious. He created a fake id with name “sidhu”, make that id answer 2 Q, upvoted them all, and then used that new id to upvote 8 of his answers. Its so freakin clear. His mentality, as far as i can predict, was that he got “anxious” due to others having almost similar upvotes, and felt he may fall off the list…

I already sent a mail to codechef regarding this. Honestly, I am actually pained, cause he was contributing a lot, but well…I really cannot let unethical things here.

I mean, we are losing people because they fall in this “greed” for being in the list…its just so sad.

In prakhars case, I feel hes genuine, but i can say it with utmost confirmation only when admin checks the activity of “prakhar_26” and “utkarsh1997” who form a major chunk of his votes. But I hope he is a genuine guy…

Creating this thread had been going in on my mind, but i felt its trivial. But you created it, so well all cool XD.

EDIT1- Replying to waterbreak-

@waterbreak, what you said has weight. But actually, tbh, very less people upvote such Q. Real problem is in differentiating the real guys from frauds. It’d be really bad if some real guy gets hooked in…I mean that guy asking that trivial Q might be a school kid asking help for homework…or things. And I will say that, there are many people who downvote such Q, and very, very little who upvote them. I mean, this issue is not as serious because the decision to vote still rests with community. On the other hand…creating fake id or asking college friends to upvote is just…So concluding it, the implementation of this is tough. I think reporting and downvoting such Q is a way to go, but we need to be careful in deciding who is “karma farmer” and who is a genuine guy. That’s all :).

(Wrote in answer as comment limit was nearly exceeded, and I had more to type, lol XD)

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In addition to this, there are users who ask standard programming questions that when searched on Google result in multiple links, possibly even on CodeChef and are awarded karma when someone upvotes them. Totally unfair on a lot of users of this forum in my opinion.

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I’ve written a mail to codechef regarding this matter.

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Yes buddy, that’s what we should do. I had mailed them an hour ago too (when I saw innovation suddenly sky-rocketing from 180 to 260…and upvoter was some random new guy…who just received 20 karma by innovation’s upvotes…I mean wew. Things are clear to naked eye…)

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Wow. That’s the best proof so far. “Detective only4” has already got the most crucial proof. Hahah XD. But seriously bud, wow…just wow…

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@likecs - I was about to raise this issue too. Even I noticed some guys were recklessly upvoting each other’s answers. I too saw just how many upvotes inovation123 got in such a few time. I remember seeing some more handles like that.

I cannot say much about @prakhariitd. He is a personal friend of mine, and I really don’t think he is indulging in such activities.

@vijju123 lol I am not trying to give free karma points to my friends! You can see my timeline - I have become active on Codechef Discuss quite recently (until now I was just into solving problems), and have started to read the answers of my college mates. I saw some of @prakhariitd’s answers and I liked them. I didn’t realize that I triggered some sort of ‘warning flag’ in that process. If it really matters I will limit the number of upvotes I give to someone.

@admin This could in fact be a nice solution to this problem. Why not limit the number of upvotes a user can give on one day?

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Your suggestion is nice.

I believe you bro, that’s why I said that I feel that prakhar’s case is genuine. Even I liked many of his answers!!

The only reason I wrote about it in ym answer is that, if you look at his karma history, you would see your and prakhar_26’s name continuously in a row…and I am afraid that may make some people suspicious. That’s all. Idk, I am not able to express myself clearly atm…but please know I have no ‘bad intention’. I just tried to point out what some person may feel from neutral view…I have no intention that you limit upvoting good answers

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Yeah I realized that. In fact looking at how many karma points I got within such a short span of time, even I may look suspicious!

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@likecs is right. Codechef should perform plagiarism before awarding laddus to top Contributors. Some guys are really misusing this discussion session(I will not mention their names as all you are aware of that).

The point of @waterbreak is absolutely right. Some guys like @rashedcs ask questions here which can easily be found on google, geeksforgeek, stackoverflow or math.stackexhange like websites.

I don’t know about the intention of that guy so i would like to request all such guys specially @rashedcs to please search your query at google first and try to mingle with it for sometime, after that if you could not got the satisfactory answer after crawling through all other websites then you are free to ask here.

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All I wanted to convey was that people might find that thing suspicious, (because admins straight ban such people-that might be too late to warn).

And I asked admin to have a look because, if he says that “No, he is not karma farming” then it means he is not. Then nobody can actually point out finger at him or you or anyone. That’s all. Please don’t misinterpret me, I really don’t want to sound demeaning or disrespectful to anybody… :slight_smile:

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I believe @rashedcs isn’t doing this on purpose, since he personally sent me a message on FB (when I answered one of his questions) asking “How to become good at programming?” However, yes he must at least try searching about stuff on his own.

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I too agree with utkarsh. I feel he is genuine guy, he asks for help when he isn’t able to get things. Yes, I too feel he doesn’t search on google…but I feel its alright…because we are a discussing community…(but again, that’s strictly my opinion and others’ opinion may vary). All in all, I don’t want that any geniune guy gets discouraged from asking Q…that’s all dear :slight_smile:

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To find out fake IDs codechef can use the IP of users.

Also, the upvoting privilege can be restricted to users having Rating >= K.

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They are actually quite quick in this thing. The last guy got banned overnight- before I could feel suspicious of him indulging in karma farming.

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@prakhariitd That will not be enough. Weeding out fake IDs alone won’t make the cut. What if two genuine users decide to get mutual benefit by giving regular upvotes to each other to get more karma points?

Some sort of plagiarism test is fine. But, the question is how will the judge which case is genuine?

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Yup, that’s the real problem. The line is thin, and punishment too harsh. Cant risk having an innocent guy getting permanently banned.

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All that is fine. But I hope that some genuine user doesn’t get caught up in all of this confusion.

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You both misinterpreted my answer. My intention was not that this guy asking question here because of karma points. My point was that why is he continuously asking such question that can easily be found on google.

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I believe placing a cap on the number of upvotes can be a good alternative.

“If you cannot control the situation at the end of the month, just start controlling it right from the beginning”.

  • utkarsh1997

:stuck_out_tongue:

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