It seems that the
ranking issue comes down to a fundamental choice:
1)
We allow
anonymous rankings. On the plus side, this probably means more voting
and fewer inhibitions by the voters to express their opinions. On the minus
side, abusers will always find a way around our defenses as long as they
remain anonymous.
2)
Only
registered users can vote. On the plus side, there is full transparency
we can trace any vote to a specific user so abuses can be dealt with on a
personal level. This should significantly limit the number of bogus
rankings. On the minus side, users may be less inclined to vote for
privacy reasons.
The rankings were
initially identified as an issue when we transferred EPiC to Eclipse.org
because Eclipse has a responsibility to be impartial towards its members and
the community, a responsibility that the alliance didnt have (although
fairness was a goal). Even if the realty is that we do an excellent job
at preventing abuse, the perception of fairness is as important. Can we
achieve this without requiring registration?
While this is a
healthy debate, we should put this to a vote soon. I propose that we
vote (via the email system used thus far) by Monday of next week.
Eric
From:
phoenix-epic-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:phoenix-epic-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ian Skerrett
Sent: Monday, September 18, 2006 6:52
AM
To: 'The EPIC component of
Phoenix'
Cc: 'Mik Kersten'
Subject: [phoenix-epic-dev] FW: bogus
rankings on EPIC
All,
Mik Kersten sent me
an e-mail complaining about some of the rankings that have been made on EPIC.
I think we need to decide how we want to respond to Miks
concerns.
Btw, Mik agreed for
me to post his original e-mail on the mailing list. Please copy him on
any replies, since he has not subscribed to this
list.
Thanks
Ian
From: Mik
Kersten [mailto:beatmik@xxxxxxx]
Sent: September 15, 2006 2:38
PM
To: 'Ian
Skerrett'
Subject: bogus
rankings on EPIC
Hi Ian,
Could you give me the email address of someone
responsible for EPIC? I have submitted 3 email/web complaints of bogus
rankings trying to bring up Instantiations products and bump others near them
on the top-10 down. I still have received no response and the bogus
ranking is continuing, e.g.:
http://www.eclipseplugincentral.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Web_Links&file=index&req=ShowRaterDetails&userid=&hostname=68.178.73.218
If these kinds of problems with anonymous rakings are
not addressed pro-actively by EPIC abuse like this is likely to continue, and
someone could blog about this and make EPIC look untrustworthy.
Mik
--
Mik Kersten,
http://kerstens.org/mik
Mylar Project Lead,
http://eclipse.org/mylar
