Apology for manipulating ratings of my webteases

[sissysassylauren]

Well, I dont really know what to say. Everyone is right, it is after all only a webtease. Who cares what the ratings are, right? I was infact runner up last month and missed it by one vote! Was a little gutted, but it was my first tease and I was very flattered to just be nominated.

I just want to say that I am a Software and web application developer by trade and obviously have a huge understanding of cookies and IP when it comes to log in and voting systems. The system is currently open to abuse. For the record I would just like to add that I have not manipulated my teases ratings in any shape, form or manner. I see no point in this. I have written purley for my reader and always will do. I hope this gets sorted out and a fair system is put in place.

I would like to thank everyone who voted for me once again.

[green]

There are techniques which cannot be detected, if its only the cookies that are logged and the IP adress(Maybe also some http headers).

We already block a single IP address from voting more than once within a certain time limit. What I'm proposing is statistical analysis, it's how they catch tax evaders. Statistical data has a certain predictable randomness. Our users use certain browsers, they use the site at certain times, they vote on a certain number of teases and read a certain number of pages beforehand, they use a certain Internet providers, a certain number of them are registered a certain number aren't. If there is an anomaly against any of those parameters, it'll show up in the data.

So if somebody votes say, 20 times and they spread it out over the whole day and they use different Internet providers from different countries for each vote, they use different browsers, they browse around the site a little first, they make sure some of the votes are made with registered accounts some aren't, they change their browser language and their operating system from vote to vote. Even if they do all that we'd still be able to notice the anomaly if they haven't used the right ratio of different browsers for example. Once you have a certain amount of data, these anomalies become statistically significant, proving foul play. Then you look for links between the fake votes and the author and if you can match anything... you've got your cheater.

Of course all this is time consuming and after all the TOTMs are just a little token of appreciation from our community, I doubt one would get much satisfaction from them if one didn't win honestly. Cactusman said he didn't feel good about the whole thing at all, which I'm guessing is why he decided to come clean.

But hey, all I'm saying is: I do occasionally get bored on weekends and cheaters leave a digital footprint. Just thought they should know that - in the interest of fair play.

That sounds like a challenge xD...

Anyways. I'm not wanting to waste my time writing software to does just that.

It's just that its indeed possible to cheat without you being technically or statistically able to notice the foul play. Ofcourse its weird when the "worst" tease on milovana is after a month or two rated highest, but It's obviously possible to generate those results without leaving a fingerprint or relation to the cheater ;). I've been working on human behaviour scripts for other purposes, as long as your bots statistics don't differ too much from that of a normal human you can't be caught.. except you do something stupid ofcourse ;]...
In this case it could be repeating parts of http headers, or using flagged proxies ........

~green~

[camel]

Cactusman: The idea that some of the energy you could have been using to make more/better teases have instead been used to cheat is a little like Inigo Montoya declaring that he's not left handed.

In a good way: You fucking scare me.

[AngelAnna837]

True story!

*mumble mumble* you stole them here too! *mumble mumble*

[cactusman]

Interesting. Yeah, the post which turned into topic and poll by seraph0x, had been my only speculation as to how your teases rated so consistently high without mentioning any names. Anyways, to me a rating on my tease means a lot as far as community perception, reaction, quality, etc. A lot of people say forget about the ratings, write for yourself, that's what it's all about. I think that's partly true and I do that... but even more so I like to write for others and having an interest in the rating is just a small reflection of that. But manipulating it would kind of defeat the purpose when you carry that mindset.

Generally, I think most people do write teases for their own personal enjoyment. However, that's not what I'm talking about. When you publish it, are you publishing it more for yourself or for the people that read it? I think most people publish for the community. The attention you can get from writing nice teases is great, but when the scale balances towards that side too much, towards caring about ratings and TOTM nominations for the attention that's when you can be in trouble.

Just my suggestion, to maybe help you overcome your problems is to remember who it is you're publishing for... the community, not yourself. Don't use the ratings to bring attention to yourself, but use it as a reflection of how the tease was received by your readers.

Yes, trying to remember that is a good thing, I agree.

I also wanted to apologize to you, Evals, since I know your teases were pushed down in the "highest ratings" by my craziness. I feel very sorry about that and realize how crazy and silly my actions have been...

[cactusman]

As a punishment you must write some more high quality teases.

This is one punishment I'm happy to take on. I have just published:

"Kara: Teasing Cock-Sitter (Part 2)": http://www.milovana.com/webteases/showtease.php?id=8211

I did this on purpose at the end of the month, instead of my previous practice of always publishing a long tease at the start of the month, so that I wouldn't get back into the cycle of trying for the TOTM with each long tease publication.

I hope you won't think this is inappropriate. I'm trying to get back into a healthy mode for interacting here, and had this mostly finished before all this broke out.

[seraph0x]

I've been working on human behaviour scripts for other purposes, as long as your bots statistics don't differ too much from that of a normal human you can't be caught..

That's not correct. Imitating a normal human will not help you. You have to imitate a normal Milovanian. And since you don't have access to our stats, you don't know anything about the average Milovanian, as in what times he visits the site, what browsers he uses, where he comes from, etc.

So if Firefox has 40% market share and you program your bot to pretend to be Firefox 40% of the time, but Milovanians use Firefox 70% of the time, then it'll show up that non-Firefox users tend to like a certain tease more.

Unless you know our local averages, you can't vote more than a certain number of times before you cause significant anomalies. That applies to bots, human-acting bots and even to humans voting more than once.

If Seraph0x hadn't gotten bored one weekend, Milovana might never have been created. And then where would we all be?

Where there is a will, there is a way. If I hadn't created Milovana, somebody else would've kept the webtease idea alive.

Why? Cause webteases are fucking awesome, that's why.

[green]

I've been working on human behaviour scripts for other purposes, as long as your bots statistics don't differ too much from that of a normal human you can't be caught..

That's not correct. Imitating a normal human will not help you. You have to imitate a normal Milovanian. And since you don't have access to our stats, you don't know anything about the average Milovanian, as in what times he visits the site, what browsers he uses, where he comes from, etc.

So if Firefox has 40% market share and you program your bot to pretend to be Firefox 40% of the time, but Milovanians use Firefox 70% of the time, then it'll show up that non-Firefox users tend to like a certain tease more.

Unless you know our local averages, you can't vote more than a certain number of times before you cause significant anomalies. That applies to bots, human-acting bots and even to humans voting more than once.

well, you don't need thousands of votes per day.. just 5-10 a day would be easily enough if you have the time ;]... and you could also randomly skip days and so on.

Believe me, there are ways which are technically undetectable, but you had a good point about user agents there too :].

Oh.. and also not all anomalies in the statistics are cheats ;]... Also, there are ways to get or make statistics for this webhost ;]...

~greeen~

[cumhardy]

Its all just wank material, i dont think anyone is that hung up over it
although I did notice you bumped a lot of your feedback threads all the time

[cactusman]

Its all just wank material, i dont think anyone is that hung up over it
although I did notice you bumped a lot of your feedback threads all the time

I don't know if it's "bumping" the threads, but I do like to respond, like this

[Jake1212]

More likely, Cactusman, people are not becoming "bored" by your long teases... they're just not making it all the way through without cumming! (At least, that's been my experience.) Try as I might, that's a marathon run. Though, I'm still looking forward to the next installment of the "sitter." (I had a TOTM nominee myself awhile back, "Sister-in-law's Revenge"... it was my one and only entry. Good thing I didn't think of your multiple-IP address manipulation scheme, or I might have been tempted.

[cactusman]

More likely, Cactusman, people are not becoming "bored" by your long teases... they're just not making it all the way through without cumming! (At least, that's been my experience.) Try as I might, that's a marathon run. Though, I'm still looking forward to the next installment of the "sitter."

Thanks, that's very flattering.