Do you think people unfairly manipulate YA through multiple accounts?

Question

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/?qid=20080730085357AAnVUqF

I checked this answer this morning, it said I had 5 votes and another had 6, and there were two hours left to vote. I went to the gym. When I got home the screen was still up on my monitor. I refreshed it, it said that there were 2 minutes left, and I had six votes and the other had 10. I thought this was somewhat suspicious, but didn't think much of it. I just checked my email, and somehow I had won the vote. I have a hard time believing so many different people got in to vote in the last two minutes and all voted for me. The logical explanation is some people manipulate this kind of thing by voting multiple times with different accounts. This is childish and wrong. I am sure people on both sides of the issue claim they do it because people on the other side do it, but that only perpetuates dishonesty. An eye for an eye and the whole world is blind. Please do not involve me in this kind of thing. I detest it. I am sure this will be reported for being in the wrong category, solicitation, and chatting. I hope the responsible parties see it before it gets removed.

Answer 1

The answer to this is yes... some people do use multiple accounts in order to manipulate the answers. They think it's some kind of a contest, that you somehow "win" if you get the Best Answer. They act like there's some kind of prize for the most points, and try to bury answers they disagree with. As evidence of this, I got 5 "thumbs down" votes and one "thumbs up" vote on one of my "best answer" winners... which seemed really odd, considering all I did was use math and logic (and math which I told everyone was inaccurate, but nobody attacked that part).

Me, I just give the most honest answer I can. I have one (count it, one) account. I don't think that cheating is going to help people arrive at the truth of the matter. What it will do is to ensure that bias remains, divisions are not resolved, and that everyone gets to stay just as irrational as they want to be.

YA should be about the search for truth, not proving other answerers right or wrong.

Answer 2

Yes, people do it. I can't bring myself to do it. If I haven't earned it, the result just isn't worth it.

There are cheaters everywhere. Try not to worry yourself about it, I know it can be quite frustrating. Unless YA went through the trouble of tracking by IP addresses, they wouldn't have a way to see if someone was using multiple accounts to get more points and best answers.

A lot of us are honest though. :)

Answer 3

Since you are the one that got the best answer the most logical explaination is that you are the one with the multiple accounts.

Only joking.

It would be quite tedious to sign in and out 5 times to do this so if someone is this they must be awfully keen.

Or is there any way of keeping more than one account open on your computer at the same time?

Edit

Yes there is, I just worked out how to keep two open at once.

Answer 4

Yes, we manipulate our percentage of best answers shamelessly

Answer 5

I would like to retract my statement. With a sober mind, I would like to say I have noticed this too but never put two and two together.

My first thought was that no one would go so far out of their way to give a couple of thumbs up / down. I then remember how some make false accounts to mock / impersonate others.

The city I live in is 68 precent Catholic, 14 precent Protestant and I do not remember the rest, most people I know are close minded to the paranormal. When I initially stumbled upon YA Alt Sci, I thought it was awesome,  people with the same interest as myself but now the pettiness is almost ridiculous.

Answer 6

I'm sure it's done.It's a lot effort for not enough gain.At least in my opinion.Besides I've seen some strange things happen on Yahoo.What happened to you might be a plain old glitch.

Edit Mycroft please,the whining it's very unbecoming.Report monkees go after everyone.

Answer 7

Yep, I've been watching this for a while. Somebody here (a believer) was so fed up with it I think he just stopped answering, thought I see him every now and then. A while back it was happening regularly on every question in parapsychology, then it stopped. Then a few months ago somebody decided to start power-voting for pro-believer answers in the parapsychology category, usually given to one certain person. That's been going on for a while uncontested, and now it looks like the power-voter has company. It's amusing in a strange way, but I can't help but contemplate how much better this place would be without the competition.

EDIT: If you think this is bad, a while back when I first joined there was this ghost hunter who posted here, a real character. He seriously claimed to have been picked up by ghosts and thrown across the room, punched, ribs broken, etc. He'd get awful mad if you didn't believe him. Anyway, he'd almost always get 10 thumbs up and 10 votes for all his answers, mysteriously enough. That's not even subtle!

EDIT: Red, I'd say welcome to the club, but.if you haven't gotten at least 6 thumbs down then you're not a full "member" of the club yet. :)  Many skeptics routinely have been getting 5 or 6 thumbs down in the parapsychology category (yours truly racked up 8 thumbs down recently), and a believer or two has been getting similar thumbs down as well. It seems to have let up lately though.

Answer 8

Um, all the time!  Especially spammers!

Get used to it.  It's very clear that management here is not interested in cleaning up this site.

Answer 9

Yes, it is easy to see who they are, they are the ones with the top answers AND  they are the greatest skeptics in a paranormal group.

Figure it out, one of them is even complaining already, he's answered your question. Not too tough when 'they' point the finger but 'they' are the top answerers?

What he is complaining about is people like me that fight back with words and don't give in to them. They are liars, they are stupid and hurtful especially to young people that don't understand the paranormal or don't have anyone to explain things to them.

Wouldn't it be nice if everyone had an aunt or a grandmother that could explain some of life's 'unexplainable mysteries'? Sure,  that is what this board is for,  people that have never had the luxury of either.

These frauds are the skeptics, they are the cheats, they are feeding their EGO by putting people down.

For sure if you ask for the truth one of the cheats will report you, they report me all the time. Good luck with your answer.

Answer 10

Sure they do.  But Y/A doesn't do much without complaints, and something like this requires a lot of time.  Shows there are too many kids online.

Answer 11

Its Yahoo Answers honey, not the United Nations. You expect too much.

Answer 12

Well...yeah of course....but I also think someone so obsessed as to check how their answers are doing on an hourly basis needs to seek proffessional help....BTW... I reall y like papa geoff's answer even though he hasn't responded yet...

Answer 13

to answer your question... yes, people do have multiple accounts for the purpose of manipulation.

Answer 14

Yeah, I think they do. I was just on a question and reading through the answers, and looky here, two girls with the same exact avatar, same exact answer, just different names.... I know that's the same person. Atleast some of them are clever enough to change their identities up a bit and not making it noticeable. Idiots.