Hey guys!

Can someone tell me if this is true . .

iSketch has changed how many votes is needed to skip a player, ranging from 2-6 votes?

I read on another forum that the owner explained the new voting system but then decided to delete it, but someone I know who plays the game did read it and it said 2-6 votes are needed, but this depends what the kind of room it is.

I'm frankly surprised that this decision has been taken and wondering if this is now permanent?

It probably will be permanent, but I personally think that more changes will come to sort of... complement it. But that's just my opinion, which as we all know means very little most of the time.

But yes, I believe that that is true. I haven't seen a room where only two votes are needed, but I have seen rooms with different numbers of votes required, and yes the highest that I have seen is six. Five people voted but the player wasn't skipped. It's often difficult to get THREE people to vote, so I have no idea why it's thought that needing SIX is a good idea.

It's often difficult to get THREE people to vote, so I have no idea why it's thought that needing SIX is a good idea.

I know :mad:

So many people have been drawing porn and cheating through IM but nothing seems to be done about it. All I notice is a 15 min block and that's for people who share answers through IM :mad:

http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/628/robgfc.jpg

This system doesn't seem to work . . why does it take 5 regular players to kick vote a newbie . .

I'm already not liking this voting system.

Personally, I would like to see the system weighted more in favor of the voters as opposed to the votee.
If I have never been booted, skipped, blocked etc., (i.e. have a clean record) then I think my vote (along with 2 others, if we're just comparing this to the old system) should be enough to get rid of a newbie.

This all appears to be in favor of the people being voted. From what I've seen of this, and from what Rob has said, I don't see the voters' history being taken into account at all.

I like the old "3 votes and you're skipped" system, but I agree with spectre that player voting history should play a part in determining the number of votes needed to skip someone.

Maybe something like this:

Newbies - 2 votes to skip
Regular players - Ranging from 1 to 5 votes depending on voting history and reputation. New regular player's default is 3 votes.

This all appears to be in favor of the people being votedl

That's the thought on my mind. Why did Rob find the sudden urge to change the vote system since . .

Google Friend Connect Tool This was introduced as a way of attracting more users to the site. As a web developer myself, in 99% of websites that I have seen use the Google Friend Connect and Facebook Connect, have been on blog sites.

iSketch, has a chat window for people to socialise, therefore, the Google tool is not needed as a further extension of chat.
It's sole purpose is to drive traffic into the site . . fair enough, but what are the consequences?


- You get users who are only informed of the site by being invited to an iSketch group. So it's like on facebook, you have a contact who invites everyone on their friendlist to a group that you have no idea what it is, so you click to accept . .
When you accept, this person is directed towards iSketch.net and the first thing they write is "how do you login" "how do you play" "where are the rooms" "what is this site?"

So what happens is . . these people log in and they write on the canvas

This in turn will lead to a violation of the draw and people will warn . . but there lies the next problem . .

- A few weeks before the google tool was implemented, changes were made to voting privileges. This caused major problems for users as they were suddenly without votes, now although the initial problems seem to have lessened, people are still losing votes and it is increasingly difficult to get them.
So, if there are now less people to vote, that means more violators get away with punishment.

But that will lead us to the admin. . .

- Rob was seriously underprepared for the problems google tool would give. The increased traffic on the site would inevitably bring more violations on the site. . . unfortuantely the owner didn't see this. So his solution was new admin . .

What happened what that the new admin were dealing with violations higher than ever before and when you throw someone into the Lions' Den, you're gonna get bitten back and that is what happened to the admin, they were so overrun with violations, they were making mistakes and inconsistences in punishments.

Next solution . .

- More VIP players, these players other than having a registered name, have the ability of a double vote compared to the normal user.

I have noticed more VIP players and has this deterred cheating in any way or made difference to the voting of violators? Answer in my eyes is no . .

So Rob has probably seen how his ideas have worked (or in this case . . have not worked) so he is trying another attempt of fiddling around with the voting system . . but this has got to be the most puzzling of them all.

It does in fact go in favour of the violator, so why is this the case? Is it the fact that violations have increased and more votes have occurred against players? Well the answer is yes to that, but has there been an increase in vote abuse? I would say no, in fact, the system of gaining voting privileges has made it harder for people to vote abuse . . so why is there a change in the amount of votes needed to skip players?

Only thing I could think of, it's t allow new players who have no clue what the site is about, not to feel threatened into leaving the site almost as soon as they enter. By allowing them to stay longer, because it is much harder to boot them, it keeps them on the site to keep up the traffic flow

Conclusion is, more hits on the site and less enjoyable game play

Lol, you wrote that as though you're sitting in Rob's mind or something. It sounds quite freaky! :eek: Not saying that's how I believe it to be, just saying the way you wrote it was freaky. Sometimes I wish Rob were here to comment.

Anyways, I haven't played iSketch in well over a year now, but what I can say is that I personally would have got fed up with this new 2-6 votes system you guys are referring to. Mostly because before that even happened, there were times where finding 3 people to skip a drawing (even in a full room!) was difficult enough. There have been times when people have drawn a penis in the first 5 seconds of the draw, and you find yourself voting to skip while everyone else laughs at the drawing or worse still.. trying to guess what it actually is (!). Then you're sat twiddling your thumbs waiting for the timer to stop. If you're lucky enough, an admin comes in when you least expect it and pop.. out goes the player from the room. So yeah, I can understand peoples' frustrations on that one :/

I wonder what the admins think about this though? Because they obviously get a bit of a view that is different to players, and maybe Rob has got their opinions on it, perhaps even before it was implemented? Maybe it is helping them, too? Who knows. Maybe this might be temporary to see how well it works first. As for the whole different rooms thing.. I have a feeling that the most votes will affect the Easy English rooms, as those are right at the top and that's a hot spot for new players. So maybe this won't affect other more dedicated rooms like, 5 strokes, etc? Can't say I've checked this out, so I wouldn't know xD

Anyways, happy 6 players skipping to everyone :D lol

Oh, actually.. I have a little question of my own.. if you wanna boot someone from a room, is that still 3 kicks?

Oh, actually.. I have a little question of my own.. if you wanna boot someone from a room, is that still 3 kicks?

Same votes required for skipping and booting in the same room. so 2 votes on a draw = 2 boots to kick out of room and same goes for 3, 4, 5, 6 , both equal

I was playing iSk today in an Easy room and the voting was just as it was. It only took 3 votes to skip someone.
As far as I know the server was reset a short while ago. As long as you are a regular player the voting should be as normal.
My interpretation is that it kinda works by levels now. If you are a new regular (you've only just lost your newbie dot) it may take up to 6 of these votes to skip someone.
As you get more experience you gain a higher voting privilege so it should gradually go to 5 votes, then to 4, and finally return to the usual 3 votes for regulars.
I think its just an extra thing for new regulars. Some new regulars are maybe a bit trigger-happy when it comes to voting so it's just an extra precaution against that :)

I think at the very least a registration system should have been made a long time ago. Very simply a secure system needs just 4 fields of data. Username, Email, Activated and an Encrypted Password. I made one of these for a test (for a project) in minutes.

Also a simple system can be adapted to use this crappy google thing if so required. It could have been done years ago and in just a matter of minutes.

Alot of this is above peoples heads and granted if you do not know the subject then it will be confusng and need time, but since i know it can be done quickly i do get frustrated when i hear about the mess admns have to wade through and when i see players harassed by bad players :(

It's not that hard, maybe requires a little investment into the servers and that could have been done before the site tried to expand with google friend connect.

So if that tool wasn't introduced, investment could have been made into securing a fully functioning database for existing users, but now more server bandwidth has been purchased because of the increased traffic, rather than buying it to enable a fully functioning database.

Just on the note of players being harassed, Mal. It was happening a lot yesterday and the same thing happened when a player shouted racist remarks with an admin in the room . . 15 minutes block. No deterrents at all, it's like you have 15 mins away from not being able to be abusive and when time elapses, you come back and start over again.

I'm starting to think inklink was a world beater now

All I know is that I'm having a hard time to find rooms with friends in them, because nobody wants to play with these 'sucky' new rules! Myself included!

I know :mad:

So many people have been drawing porn and cheating through IM but nothing seems to be done about it. All I notice is a 15 min block and that's for people who share answers through IM :mad:

http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/628/robgfc.jpg

This system doesn't seem to work . . why does it take 5 regular players to kick vote a newbie . .

How can you proove if someone is sharing answers via IM?

iSketch has a selected wordlist that is used by admins to catch cheats out.

Also, when someone guesses a word correctly without a stroke being drawn, it's obvious there is cheating via IM.

Having played with the new voting system for a bit I can see both the advantages and disadvantages of it. Obviously it is quite frustrating when it takes 6 votes to skip a newbie who's using letters - however I usually play with a group of other regs so each time this has happened either the 6 votes were reached quite easily or an admin skipped the player. So in my experience, I haven't seen it necessarily working to the advantage of the offender. The advantages I can see of this new system though would be that groups of friends aren't able to bully other players. I myself have been booted from a room simply because I was chatting in the chat box and these players must've found me annoying or what-not and decided to boot me for it (afaik I hadn't said or done anything offensive :/). However this is probably the only advantage I can see for this new system, and I can see how it could create problems in the future for dealing with trolls and the players who are purposely causing trouble. But like with most things, it probably needs a bit more time to see how it goes..

Oh and..

Also, when someone guesses a word correctly without a stroke being drawn, it's obvious there is cheating via IM.

Except in some very rare cases where someone types a PM or something unrelated in the game box that happens to contain the answer! It does happen! XD Always observe players you think might be sharing answers for a few rounds before you vote.

The short version:

I'm glad they are tinkering with the voting system. I can't imagine there is one perfect way to do it, and over time, I hope they continue to try to make it as effective as possible at any given time.

Additional comments:

I have noticed that changes over time have reduced the ability of a group of newbie cheating players to ruin entire rooms.

I observed the possibly negative side of the recent changes in an english easy room, in which 4-5 skip votes did not skip a player with a newbie dot for writing "1st." But this is a minor infraction, and the votes still would have gotten the attention of an adminstrator had they been online.

There is a balance between preventing groups from ganging up and over-voting for minor or nonexistant reasons, and making the group voting system effective and consequential for those who are truly causing problems.

I also agree that weight should be given to a player's experience and record on isketch, but it appears that might already be happening. On the other hand, I have observed experienced players ganging up on people in a room for little or no reason, so a system that prevents them from doing so is one more thing to add to the balance.

In the end, I think it's important for individual players to not get too hyped up about having a ton of control over any one individual player. I know how frustrating certain cheaters can be, but this is a group monitoring system, based strongly on having admins online at the time, so I'm generally happy to add my vote into the mix, then move on with whatever is appropriate, no matter the results for the person I voted on.

Lately, I've seen a lot more situations taken care of appropriately by admins than not, and we all should probably be willing to let a few get by for the sake of a balance in priorities.

Agreed ottimo ^^
The biggest problem I have seen with iSk lately is the groups of friends who abuse their privleges and other players, newbies and regulars alike - eg. (http://www.isketchforum.net/inquiry-people-abusing-t3385.html) Of course there are still cheats and trolls and such, yet those are minor in comparison and most offenders are only one-off visitors to the site. The new voting system definitely works to help combat those who abuse their privs.

I have noticed a lot less vote abuse since the change from the 10 game system to gain votes.

Votes abuse from certain groups of friends that I have noticed since the change from 10 games to gain privileges to the days of visits to the site has decreased significantly.

I'm going to disagree with you, from my own experience, that vote abuse is not as big as a problem as it used to be since it is taking longer to gain votes and that cheating amongst users has increased a lot.

I move around to different rooms on the site and my own experience is that you'll get more rooms with trouble (in the easy rooms since they're top of the room list) than those easy rooms without trouble.

The system is flawed in most cases and if the owner who has been logging on under his iSketchforum.net username (and not iSketch.net name) please care to explain this new system, then I'm all ears) since he has been reading these posts and of course, he doesn't have to reply to what he sees but it may lower the tensions

The peak times of players to log on are about 8pm - 3am GMT since the UK and US are in the top 3 locations from the world (Brazil 2nd) to log on to the site and I notice major problems during these hours

I just hope that they give more "power" to those who earnt it over time.

Another thing I have noticed is that the occasions where you need 6 votes to skip someone gives a little bit of extra time for administration to become involved. When only 3 votes were needed, sometimes these votes come in very quick succession, and sometimes the violator leaves pretty promptly.

We'll just have to see how it goes for the time being, sometimes change takes a while to get used to.

I was voting people off in one yesterday!

kapow!

Must be something to do with your stats hehe!:razz:

I just hope that they give more "power" to those who earnt it over time.



I was voting people off in one yesterday!

kapow!


If this experience/voting power connection is happening or going to happen, it kind of makes me wonder how they will or might be figuring it...

I played my first 3 years without any stats resetting. In the past two years, my games/wins have been reset once or twice, and my hours have been reset several times more than that.

But then again, it doesn't matter that much to me, as it's not my role to be the sole arbiter. The best scenario is always to have adminstrators online when votes are cast. The problems generally only arise when there aren't any admins around.

Maybe clungeface was voting people off on his own because they had already been skipped before and only needed one vote to skip them from then on...

Going by what Rob has said, given below, the people must have been skipped before, as it ranges between 2 and 6 votes to vote someone off normally.

http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/628/robgfc.jpg

I guess it is impossible for only one person to vote off a previously non-violating artist.

6 of us voted to skip someone yesterday and nothing happened. So weird. You should have seen me sat there counting it 3 times to make sure it was 6 of us, heh.

It was such a dreadful picture, as well. Someone trying to write the letter 'a' as a penis. Double rule breaker! Pfftness.

But yeah, in general I'm starting to see some of the good points in having the changes with the voting, actually. I think it will grow on me...

Just some more of my own thoughts having played some more games...

The only way I can see this new thing really working is if more admins were introduced, if not already. I was just sat in a room where basically every play was a rule breaker, so I was the only one voting to skip. Sigh. I could tell not many admins were online (I could be wrong) due to no visits in the room by them (no one was skipped or booted, etc even though there was more than enough time to do it). So yeah, it's made me realise how difficult it can get when there isn't an admin around, or if there are very few on in the moment (who are busy dealing with other rooms).

And that's not a criticism against admins. I've said time and time again that they're all doing a great job, because this is time out of their daily lives to help monitor the game - and no other game has that really.

I know I could quite easily go into a room with regulars, but the part that I've always loved about isketch is just going into a room with people that I don't know and spreading the love :P :) I still prefer that to joining a room with regs (again, no offense).