24 replies to this topic

[travstatesmen]

I am wondering about the Credit System calculations on the Trap17 forums. If I were to make a post and submit it, then the calculation system does its magic and attributes a certain number of Credits for that post, right? So, what happens if I later revisit the post and edit it? For argument's sake, if I get am a bit sloppy in my speeling and don't rite proper Inglish, then your algorithm will give me less Credits than if I had been more accurate with my spelling and grammar. However, if after I have pressed the "Post New Topic" or "Add Reply" button I notice the mistakes and go back and correct them, will your algorithm run again on the edited version, ascribing more Credits to reflect the improvements to the post?

[Saint_Michael]

Then the credits will adjust accordingly thus the miracle of the credit system and so you can add more credits to your posts or if your removing a big chunk of info you lose those credits. Of course you won't see the significant change unless you really alter the post by a few credits.

[jlhaslip]

As explained by Saint Mike, the Credit system works to ensure that your credit stash is current to your input. When you edit the Topic/Posting, the credits awarded adjust accordingly.
Several good reasons for this, the biggest reason is to reduce the instances where a member comes with a huge cut and paste posting, earns credits for the posting, and then edits it to avoid a Warning being issued.

Also, if you reply to a Topic, and the Topic is then sent to the Spam Bucket, your posting credits for that reply are removed when the Topic is Spammed. We do not like Spam here, but original material is welcome.

I believe the system is quite fair.

[travstatesmen]

Thanks for the explanation. It does seem to be very robust. I wouldn't mind adding a similar system to a forum of my own one day. Am I right in assuming that this is a custom extension to Invision Power Board, probably coded by OpaQue? I think I may have seen mention of it elsewhere on the forums, but cannot find it now, so please forgive me if I am asking a repetitive question. Is there such a system available for phpBB3, does anyone know?

[galexcd]

travstatesmen, on Sep 6 2008, 08:55 PM, said:

Am I right in assuming that this is a custom extension to Invision Power Board, probably coded by OpaQue?

Well yes, the credit system is OpaQue's baby, and as far as I know nobody but OpaQue himself has seen the source code for it... I'm sure there are many other similar extensions for IPB that you can use to achieve a basic "credit system", however I have yet to see one as complex as this one.

[Nabb]

Quote

Several good reasons for this, the biggest reason is to reduce the instances where a member comes with a huge cut and paste posting, earns credits for the posting, and then edits it to avoid a Warning being issued.

I did that in a previous forum! Of course the 'credits' earned were only for fun, and allowed me to do things like change other peoples' avatar, user title and signature (before they logged on to realise). Fun stuff.

Maybe it's possible to cheat the system by having text the same colour as the background - anyone tried that yet?

Edited by Nabb, 08 September 2008 - 08:23 AM.

[Stridr]

Yes I have to agree the implementation of the Credit System has made things a whole lot easier, and i believe it is not easy to program a addon for this forum with such 'intelligent' capibility.

[innosia]

After reading this thread I just know that spelling and grammars affect credit. Sometimes I don't want to correct grammar since I know the reader can understand what I mean, but in next I must pay attention to that to make sure that everything is typed and spelled correctly.

If the credit system alters the credit points after editing, is the calculation the same as if we do post without editing? And this board is Invision Power Board, I thought it is vbulletin, hmm one new board I learn about, I only know about joomla fireboard, phpbb and vbulletin, this is new to me. So opaque must be a PHP programmer

[rvalkass]

Nabb, on Sep 7 2008, 05:08 AM, said:

Maybe it's possible to cheat the system by having text the same colour as the background - anyone tried that yet?

Some people think it's done on length, so add loads of blank lines to the end of their post, which we remove But so far I haven't seen anyone try using the same coloured font as the background. It would be fairly obvious though - a massive blank space in the middle of the post.

innosia, on Sep 7 2008, 01:58 PM, said:

If the credit system alters the credit points after editing, is the calculation the same as if we do post without editing?

As far as I know, yes. It doesn't matter whether you edited the post or not, the calculation is the same.

[truefusion]

Nabb, on Sep 7 2008, 12:08 AM, said:

Maybe it's possible to cheat the system by having text the same colour as the background - anyone tried that yet?

It's been done before, and they've been caught and punished accordingly. You'd be amazed at all the stunts i've seen people do just to earn a few extra credits. I could never understand the logic behind these acts, since it can only cost them their hosting, the very thing they were seeking when they entered Trap17.

[mavreix]

Im wondering how many posts are needed before I get the ten credits I am looking for?

[-Sky-]

Mavreix, we spoke about this on the shoutbox remember. Post over (maybe) 30 posts, and you'll get over 10 credits. It's best to wait till you have over 50 credits or something. Don't make the bad mistake I made. I requested hosting when I straight away hit 10.20 credits. If I didn't have done that, I'd be on 60 credits by now. 75 amazing posts!

[galexcd]

Nabb, on Sep 6 2008, 09:08 PM, said:

Maybe it's possible to cheat the system by having text the same colour as the background - anyone tried that yet?

Ah yes, way back in November of 2005 when I was a brand new member and really didn't know much about anything, me and my friend decided that we could cheat the credit system by making the text the same color as the background. How sadly mistaken we were. I got a warn and he got a ban Ah so many good memories... If anyone wants to see this thread it is still available and open here... So yeah, learn from my mistakes and don't do what I did. After you start thinking of posting as fun you stop thinking of ways to devise the system.

Edited by galexcd, 08 September 2008 - 06:08 AM.

[RedAlert]

I'm his friend, and I learned from my mistakes too...I earned dozens of credits by exploiting the system in a fashion the administration could not detect. Since I no longer care about hosting here, I show you my year-old posts that gave me too many credits to count:

http://www.trap17.com/forums/index.php?sho...mp;#entry333349
http://www.trap17.com/forums/index.php?sho...mp;#entry319279
http://www.trap17.com/forums/index.php?sho...mp;#entry312798
http://www.trap17.com/forums/index.php?sho...mp;#entry312792

PS: If you don't get it, highlight the big blank area in my posts.

also when I tried to log into this account and failed three times it locked me out for negative 179796 minutes and the number kept rising. I had to change my IP to finally log in. You might want to look into that.

Edited by RedAlert, 08 September 2008 - 06:23 AM.

[Saint_Michael]

-Sky-, on Sep 8 2008, 12:03 AM, said:

Mavreix, we spoke about this on the shoutbox remember. Post over (maybe) 30 posts, and you'll get over 10 credits. It's best to wait till you have over 50 credits or something. Don't make the bad mistake I made. I requested hosting when I straight away hit 10.20 credits. If I didn't have done that, I'd be on 60 credits by now. 75 amazing posts!

It doesn't take 30 posts to get 10 credits, heck in 30 good posts you will have more then 50 credits heck even more if max out at ten credits. Also you want to stop at 30 credits to get the default package because once you get hosted you lose all your credits. There have been a few members who got hosted in two to three posts because how quality they were.

[galexcd]

Well I sure didn't know any of this thievery of credits was going on by RedAlert. I thought I'd send him this topic as a laugh about old times, posting on trap. Hmmmm. However, you certainly should not be following his example. I'm sure the moderators and admins will step up a bit now to make sure this can't happen anymore.

[Nabb]

So this text-same-colour-as-background thing has been done before.

I devised a method that is almost undetectable. It doesn't create massive blank space. No text is hidden and visible by highlighting... But you can hit the quote button! Damn!

So what do I do with this, should I leave it alone, or tell someone who would be able to do something about it, or what...
(no, I haven't abused it anywhere, feel free to check all my 53 posts)

edit) Har, I had another idea but it doesn't work. But it's IPB that blocks it!

Edited by Nabb, 08 September 2008 - 08:30 AM.

[jopak134]

i always thought this one an addon to ipb guess i was wrong

[rayzoredge]

Saint_Michael, on Sep 8 2008, 02:28 AM, said:

Also you want to stop at 30 credits to get the default package because once you get hosted you lose all your credits.

Whoa... what?

That's something that I can hopefully see changing... since I do plan on being hosted myself, but I never actually applied for hosting because I actually never figured out what I would want to do with a website yet, hence my plan to just save up credits for the time being. If this was outlined in the rules, apparently it wasn't obvious or I missed that very, very important statement.

I'd like to keep my credit count when I decide to host and cough up 30 credits... not 1700+ credits for default hosting.

[travstatesmen]

Yes, rayzoredge, I got caught out exactly the same way. I had built up over 100 Credits before I signed up for my hosting package with Trap17, expecting to see 30 of them used as per the advertised offer. But I didn't read the hidden small print either, and when I found that all my Credits except for a paltry 4 were taken to start my hosting I was quite shocked! I know that this problem has been addressed in the Suggestions For Version 3 Of The Credit System, and I hope that it gets adopted. It is too late for me now, and for others, and probably for you as well, but I hope that v3 will fix this problem. Either that or they should change the advertising, and say something like "It takes a minimum of 30 Credits for package 2 hosting, and will consume practically all your Credits when you start getting hosted." And this should be prominent, and not hidden in a link to a post, which is linked from the rules. I've already had my say on how confusing the rules are here, and I think something really needs to be done about it.

[RedAlert]

Very cute rvalkass, but a ridiculous idea? Really? It got me many credits and you didn't even "catch" it until I told you about it. It seems like a great idea to me.

Edited by RedAlert, 17 September 2008 - 01:08 AM.

[rvalkass]

RedAlert, on Sep 17 2008, 02:08 AM, said:

Very cute rvalkass, but a ridiculous idea? Really? It got me many credits and you didn't even "catch" it until I told you about it. It seems like a great idea to me.

Yes, but your posts were in long-dead threads that were made before I was a mod When I found the topics, it was fairly obvious.

[-Sky-]

As far as I have seen, I get my credits increased when editing my posts.

[RedAlert]

rvalkass, on Sep 17 2008, 12:58 AM, said:

Yes, but your posts were in long-dead threads that were made before I was a mod When I found the topics, it was fairly obvious.

You found them because I linked them to you AND told you what rule I broke. You would never had found them because I only edited them after the threads had already been long-dead.

[Forbez]

I'd just like to say thanks, I've always been wondering about this. Never bucked up the courage to ask .