Yeah, this is a reasonable thing to ask. So, the “if we have reason to believe that someone is violating norms around voting” clause is intentionally vague, I believe, because if we gave more detail on the kinds of checks/algorithms we have in place for flagging potential violations, then this could help would-be miscreants commit violations that slip past our checks.
(I’m a bit sad that the framing here is adversarial, and that we can’t give users like you more clarification, but I think this state of play is the reality of running an online forum.)
If it helps, though, the bar for looking into a user’s voting history is high. Like, on average I don’t think we do this more than once or twice per month.
Thanks, this is also helpful! One thing to think about (and no need to tell me), is whether making the checks public could effectively disincentivize the bad behavior (like how warnings about speed cameras may as effectively disincentivize speeding as the cameras do themselves). But if there are easy workarounds, I can see why this wouldn’t be viable.
Yeah, this is a reasonable thing to ask. So, the “if we have reason to believe that someone is violating norms around voting” clause is intentionally vague, I believe, because if we gave more detail on the kinds of checks/algorithms we have in place for flagging potential violations, then this could help would-be miscreants commit violations that slip past our checks.
(I’m a bit sad that the framing here is adversarial, and that we can’t give users like you more clarification, but I think this state of play is the reality of running an online forum.)
If it helps, though, the bar for looking into a user’s voting history is high. Like, on average I don’t think we do this more than once or twice per month.
Thanks, this is also helpful! One thing to think about (and no need to tell me), is whether making the checks public could effectively disincentivize the bad behavior (like how warnings about speed cameras may as effectively disincentivize speeding as the cameras do themselves). But if there are easy workarounds, I can see why this wouldn’t be viable.