Disciplinary - hydroable-ivy

Summary:

Brigading and vote manipulation

Disciplinary - hydroable-ivy

Queerious 21 Jul 2025 17:41

Noting that Hydroable Ivy (account age 928 days, site membership 221 days) was recently issued a ban for brigading and vote manipulation.

Due to the above, staff voted to enact a 3 month long ban based on a pattern of voting and activity across multiple Wikidot sites. Queerious, Stormbreath, Mann, Ari, Rounderhouse and Kufat supporting.

Three-month long ban enacted, PM sent.

Last edited on 21 Jul 2025 19:33 by Queerious Show more

Re: Disciplinary - hydroable-ivy

Queerious 21 Jul 2025 21:09

Noting that I received the following reply to the ban notification PM:

I am a member from SCP-CN branch. I think you fully understand this.

In Chinese branch, when an EN SCP is translated, few people read it — unless it's an awesome one or a very awful one. If the skip was really good, we will give it an upvote — not only in CN branch, but also in EN branch. That's because we are also members of EN branch, and we have the right to vote.

Now, SCP-268-J gets +31 votes in CN branch — nearly ten times the average votes. No doubt that many of us would also vote in EN branch. What's wrong with it? Are you banning us because we are Asian? Then you gave wrong reasons for the ban. In Chinese, we call this “又当又立。”

Behave yourself.

Upon following up, asking if that message was an appeal for their ban, I received the following reply:

You can think so.

Not interested in ban appeal, to be honest. Your ban is considered insolent, and I really don't wanna bother with an insolent person

Following discussion, disciplinary has elected to increase the ban to a permanent ban, given the hostility and sea-lioning present in their response. Supported by Kufat, Ari, Queerious, Rounderhouse, and Zyn.

Re: Disciplinary - hydroable-ivy

Rounderhouse 22 Jul 2025 01:22

Per the site rules:

Brigading: Calling for group downvoting (or group upvoting) of an article is prohibited. Being part of a vote brigade may lead to a ban.
Note: Not every call to check out an article by someone who dislikes it is brigading. Context and intent will determine whether or not an incident is considered brigading.

Due to the inherent difficulties in ascertaining whether someone is privately calling for a brigade, context and circumstances are used in determining whether a brigade has occurred, and staff found that it was unlikely the voting behavior was organic based off the user's previous voting history on EN.

Organized voting behaviour to artificially increase or decrease an article’s score is considered brigading and is grounds for disciplinary actions, up to and including a permaban. Voting on the translation of an article on a different branch, and then coming to EN to mirror that vote en-masse is considered brigading on EN and may result in disciplinary action. The Disciplinary Team would like to make it clear that this position does not change regardless of the site, branch, or users in question, or whether the vote manipulation is in the positive or negative direction. Staff reserves the right to take disciplinary action against users suspected of participating in a brigade with the intent of artificially altering an article's rating.