Feature Suggestions & Bugs

I have noticed http://bit.ly/2h0kmvC an unusual low rating for what that bottle is. Examining the low part of ratings I have noticed a bunch of a**holes from France who registered to Whiskbase with their only goal to give this specific bottle low, even single digits ratings (like this one http://bit.ly/2h3qa7P). May be implemented a system to avoid such things in the future?

It's happening again. There is someone in the Netherlands with two similar member names; ANDREA300764 & ANDREA310764 that has a hate on for the same release as the clowns from France that was sticking it to the Laphroaig Cask Strength 10yo Batch 009 https://www.whiskybase.com/whiskies/whisky/95402/cask-strength. 

WB needs to at least let members know when they sign up that such abuse will not be tolerated! Saying nothing is like a blank check to many.

Edit; Actually looking a little closer the three lowest ratings are 2, 3 & 3 and it looks like it's all from the same person one in Germany mo1990nr1 and two in the Netherlands andrea300764 and andrea310764 as both mo1990nr1 and andrea300764 have the exact same bottles in their collection.

We are aware but don't have a solution yet except removing / blocking the users. But it's all manual work and we haven't figured out who is behind this and why.

Saying here this is not accepted does not solve this issue as many people don't read or participate in the forum.
We have an eye on these people but need to be careful about blocking people as sometimes it looks obvious but it might just be a honest mistake.

Though these examples are clear and will be dealt with.

VaryingViewpoint wrote:

No copying and pasting tasting notes that are not your own

This is an important issue. I had to remind a couple of users that copy/pasting of notes from whiskyfun.com without giving credit to the original source is an ongoing problem on whiskybase. Violation of copyrights must be taken care of.

Statement from whiskyfun.com

'Please do not shamelessly and systematically copy-and-paste whole sets of tasting notes and scores to other websites such as Whiskybase or else. That is highly damaging. Thank you mucho.'

http://www.whiskyfun.com/archivefebruary17-2-Bunnahabhain-Auchentoshan-Appleton.html#270217

lincolnimp wrote:

I have been on about this for ages but there is something even worse, a person who copies a bloggers tasting notes then does a review on the strength of that other persons work to claim 10 points without tasting it.

Sounds like the kind of people who love watching videos of someone else watching videos, and then comment on the comments that person is making about the video that they themselves aren't watching...  heh, kids today 

Costex wrote:

A strange member WHISKY NERDS who tried only 4 whiskies.

This is definitely not a fake account - he was one of the exhibitors at Whiskybase Gathering 2017 in Rotterdam (exhibitor W03: Whisky Nerds) and probably rated a few malts himself during the event.

-Slainte

Slàinte Mhath wrote:

Costex wrote:

A strange member WHISKY NERDS who tried only 4 whiskies.

This is definitely not a fake account - he was one of the exhibitors at Whiskybase Gathering 2017 in Rotterdam (exhibitor W03: Whisky Nerds) and probably rated a few malts himself during the event.

-Slainte

This needs to be re-looked at.

From the another thread Costex wrote today;

"Hi, I personally find it a bit strange that 2 accounts, stated from Korea, have put several very strange scores.

These accounts are :

kohill - 52 points - https://www.whiskybase.com/profile/kohill

min - 16 points - https://www.whiskybase.com/profile/min

Yesterday they both have put 100 points to -

1. https://www.whiskybase.com/whiskies/whisky/31152/macallan-1972

2. https://www.whiskybase.com/whiskies/whisky/21752/macallan-1972

3. https://www.whiskybase.com/whiskies/whisky/22175/macallan-1970

   But at the same time 'kohill' has put lowest ever 84 points to the famous Bowmore 1966 Bouquet Samaroli - 

https://www.whiskybase.com/whiskies/whisky/8854/bowmore-1966-sa

And also 'kohill' has put lowest scores ever to the following great Samaroli malts:

https://www.whiskybase.com/whiskies/whisky/12078/strathisla-1967-sa

https://www.whiskybase.com/whiskies/whisky/34544/glenlivet-1955-sa

https://www.whiskybase.com/whiskies/whisky/17669/caol-ila-1968-sa

It looks to me as if these 2 guys - 'kohill' and 'min' are manipulating the whisky ratings on the Whiskybase - increasing Macallan and deliberately dropping down Samaroli malts scores.

Could anyone check them out, please.

P.S. There is one more strange Korean account - 'minmin' - who is acting in the somilar manner."

I agree, this is full manipulation. I noticed this one day a couple of weeks ago that all of a sudden the top 4 rated whiskies were all Macallan (going from memory I don't think even one Macallan was even in the top 3). I spent 5min looking at the Macallan ratings and thought 'another group think from a whisky club run amok?' It did not occur to me that these same members were also lowballing the Samaroli's to help their cause in making Macallan the top 4 rated whiskies on WB. 

Great work from Costex on this!

How does all of a sudden two members rate 7 of the top 10 highest rated whiskies here on WB at the  exact same time? And are able to skew the top 10 by so much?

Guys, great but don't expect a witch hunt from us and also don't start one yourselves.
We are working on something but it will take time as there are many different reasons why people rate something different then average. That is what we are looking for, but not only with a rating also a reason.

For the Korean people: they haven't logged in for 6 months and 1 year. So this didn't happen last week. (it helps a lot of we keep this discussion in 1 location and not in a lot of different topics)

thebase wrote:

Guys, great but don't expect a witch hunt from us and also don't start one yourselves.
We are working on something but it will take time as there are many different reasons why people rate something different then average. That is what we are looking for, but not only with a rating also a reason.

For the Korean people: they haven't logged in for 6 months and 1 year. So this didn't happen last week. (it helps a lot of we keep this discussion in 1 location and not in a lot of different topics)

No one is requesting a " witch hunt"! Just bringing to light the obvious to you. Nothing more. 

very good thoughts dRambo +1

thebase wrote:

Guys, great but don't expect a witch hunt from us and also don't start one yourselves.
We are working on something but it will take time as there are many different reasons why people rate something different then average. That is what we are looking for, but not only with a rating also a reason.

For the Korean people: they haven't logged in for 6 months and 1 year. So this didn't happen last week. (it helps a lot of we keep this discussion in 1 location and not in a lot of different topics)

Please bring back the feature where users could see how long it was since the last activities of another user on their user page. This was WB 3.0's most useful feature for tracking sock puppets and checking if fraudsters are still active, but it was removed and not brought back even though I requested it several times in the feedback threads. Nobody even bothered to say why it would not be coming back.

VaryingViewpoint wrote:

Unfortunately there does not seem to be much interest in WB communicating with their members on such matters. There is a real lack of clarity from WB and their inability to respond to such inquires with their members that seem to be interested in trying to come up with suggestions such as this to help WB not loose credibility with regards to the ratings of whisky.

I think you underestimate the amount of time the developers and admins are investing to improving Whiskybase. Dirk has mentioned on several occasions that he is hearing you, that things have been noted and will be worked on. However, these changes do not happen over night, and it takes time for the developers to work on them. WB does communicate with you in giving a transparent changelog of what will be improved with the next release and what's next on the list.

https://www.whiskybase.com/page/changelog

The problem of fake ratings has been discussed more than a dozen times and the fact that there hasn't been a quick solution to all of these problems doesn't mean that we are not aware of them!

-Slainte

Thermidor wrote:

thebase wrote:

Guys, great but don't expect a witch hunt from us and also don't start one yourselves.
We are working on something but it will take time as there are many different reasons why people rate something different then average. That is what we are looking for, but not only with a rating also a reason.

For the Korean people: they haven't logged in for 6 months and 1 year. So this didn't happen last week. (it helps a lot of we keep this discussion in 1 location and not in a lot of different topics)

Please bring back the feature where users could see how long it was since the last activities of another user on their user page. This was WB 3.0's most useful feature for tracking sock puppets and checking if fraudsters are still active, but it was removed and not brought back even though I requested it several times in the feedback threads. Nobody even bothered to say why it would not be coming back.

To be honest I was not aware of this and missed this completely. Will bring it back. It is still there for admins but I think something got screwed up with rights in this.

This should be a setting though as it will fall into the privacy aspects starting from May on.

But we can bring it back.