The Anti-Carryonbuff Thread

I recently posted some reviews (see below), and they have since received four votes by four "individual members", although I put the term "individual members" in quotation marks as they are all fake accounts made by, you guessed it, Carryonbuff.

www.listal.com/viewentry/4110692
www.listal.com/viewentry/4092451

Carryonbuff is a member I have long blocked for obvious reasons and hold him largely responsible for destroying the communal aspects of Listal.

The fact that he his visiting my account with fake profiles and voting for my stuff, not be considered a form of stalking and spamming?

Can this (plus his previous history), not qualify enough to get him banned?

The longer this goes on, the closer I get to consider leaving this site.

You're not the only one to be complaining about this again. I have received recent complaints from other users.

I highly suggest writing to Tom, since he is the only one who can really do anything about it.

@Michael

Let me quote what a Moderator posted on this forum.

If you believe that an account is fake. The best thing to do is report it to Tom via message and let him investigate the matter.

That is what I did when I suspected a member of creating fake accounts to vote for themselves. Tom did delete the fake accounts.

www.listal.com/topic/carryonbuff-i-doubt

The longer this goes on, the closer I get to consider leaving this site.

Gah, between the two worst fake account users and Listal abusers, can I sign-up for the departing ship or do I have to sit with the rats?

Hay, look the front page is another circle-jerk of fake account, plagiarized lists and porn.

^ I hadn't seen you around for a while.... I was getting worried that you had already taken the boat out of here ;)

It's nice to see people around here who aren't obsessed with votes, who would rather have their integrity than allow someone they take issue with reporting on their stuff.

I would definitely send Tom a message regarding this matter. If he is aware of the issue and that it is bothering many users he may be able to fix it right away.

I personally consider that whole rank system somewhat... well... silly? What reward there is to have high rank, but to have a high rank? Especially when getting rank usually comes with tons and tons of obsolete lists. Should there be something that gives points for quality over quantity maybe, if there really needs to be such system?

Tagging gives points and what we get? Tags like these:

From Andrei Tarkovsky for example:

Tags: Lame (9), Crap (9), Overrated (8), Pathetic (8), Silly (8), Stupid (8), Asshole (8), Boring (8), Tedious (8), Unintelligent (8), One Bad Film After Another (8), Terrible (7), Actor (5), EXTREMELY OVERRATED (5), Thinker (4), Cinema (4), Film (4), Movie (4), Made Movie (4), Awful (3)

Even not liking him or whoever, those tags show some very poor taste. And that's just a one example...

I think the solution is fairly simple: let Tom just erase the fake accounts, once he verifies they are fakes, *and* dock all the points of the original account of the same person.

@ The O.P.

I understand Tom's job of running this site is no easy task, nor does it give me any pleasure in having to constantly complain, but I have altered Tom on several occasions regarding Carryonbuff and no action has been taken.

@ jaytoast

I'm sorry, I know how frustrating it must be. And I feel the same, I absolutely hate constantly complaining about this crap to Tom, but it's unbearable and it's not going away.

My 2 cents: maybe I have a high grey-matter density, but I don't get the need to create multiple accounts. It's just stupid,...

@Orpheus
you are crazy.dont include me in your conversation.ok.

@Orpheus
just go to hell ok.i was not aware that i am so popular,you check each and every list of mine but i personally i never ,even for once have even click on the title of your lists to see them .lol..

Hahaa you're just soo envious that he actually has a brain and can make unique lists. All you can do is steal from others. You're such a shitty person and even shittier at making lists.

In the red corner, weighing in at slightly less than fifty pence...

My stay here* was brief, I shall return hastily to my own world of confusion, I have no desire to add other people to the mix.

Have fun with your lists, have fun arguing, and most of all... have fun having fun.

Toodle-pie!

*the thread, not the site.

This whole site has jumped the shark. It's like a fucking loony bin nowadays.

You know, it's very easy to avoid all the things that aggravate you on Listal if you just ignore them. I have been and continue to be oblivious to most of the conflicts that occur on here, simply by keeping myself to myself, whilst occasionally conversing with the Listal friends I have. Sure, it's self-important and is close to introversion, but I find myself having a much more enjoyable and rewarding experience on here if I stay focused on the things that I'm interested in, whilst letting others be. I suggest others try the same. X

I've tried and its really not that easy to ignore when its constantly in your face daily. It is also disturbing for those of us who care about the quality of the site as a whole. We don't want to see it go to crap. Orpheus made a great post a while ago about RottenTomatoes. How it used to be a respected site with quality reviews and then spammers populated the site and nothing was done about it. Now RottenTomatoes is just a joke. We don't want that to happen to Listal.

Off course, this is not my site, it's Tom's and it is up to him to decide what he wants for the site. But I fear that if all this spam and crap continues, we are going to lose great users like Jaytoast and Michael M. And those are the types of users who care about the site and contribute quality content.

I'm not one of the greats, nor am I thinking of leaving the site anytime soon. But I'm still equally concerned about the quality of the site, and with the more and more likely eventuality that there will be nothing good left of it. Spammers and bad users are getting away with murder, and I feel like nothing is being done to stop it. The mods have no power to stop those who are wrecking the site, and the one person who can stop it is not doing anything. I really don't want to be mean to Tom -- Listal is a fantastic concept. And it still might have fantastic potential, but things need to get turned around. People like carryonbuff and meganfan should already be banned -- there's no excuse for them still being here. There needs to be more people with more power to police the morons who keep ruining things for the rest of us. And personally I think the point system should just be taken out altogether -- it's just encouragement for people to start posting stupid crap for the sake of earning meaningless points.

I know I've been involved in a lot of the really stupid forum brawls lately and that's probably not something that says highly of me, but I've put too much work into trying to contribute to Listal to shut up and stay silent when this crap is going on. I love this site. I'm not involved in the film aspect of it as much, and I know a lot of people consider that to be the only part of Listal that counts. But I come here to take part in building up galleries because I love collecting pictures of people I'm a fan of. I love making lists using those pictures, and of models that I'm really interested in. Listal gives possibilities that other model forums and sites do not. But it's getting harder to enjoy the site when people like meganfan, carryonbuff, etc. are stirring shit up.

Anyway, I've babbled enough for now.

I agree with both of you. Thank you both for your comments.

And Tom you've done an amazing job creating this site, we are all really appreciative of that but, like I've said before, this site is just getting too big for one admin to manage so much. I seriously believe that unless you want this site to turn to crap, either you should add at least one more site admin or mods need to have more power to deal with spammers and other rule-breaking users.

And again, I really hate having to constantly complain about this but its just unbearable. And it's not just me, I'm just more vocal about it. I am also speaking for all the users who have sent me messages complaining about spammers and such on this site.

*Edit: I would also like to add that things like plagiarism are unethical and one should not just be expected to ignore something unethical. I don't like being a part of a site that does nothing to prevent something like that.

I fully agree with Orpheus, Maggie and Brazilfashion because really, what kind of people would we be if we all just sat back and accepted what's happening? What kind of people would we be if we just hung around all apathetic and careless and let people like meganfan rape this website?

There are so many users that will put their head on the chopping block and speak out for the sake of sanity and order, that will fight against the idiotic forces eating away at Listal, and we can't just smite them by saying and doing nothing at all!

I too have obviously gotten in the most inane and retarded arguments with the biggest dumbass who has ever lived, but it's not like I enjoy having to do that. I tried to be diplomatic and smart about this whole thing, but it's getting very difficult to deal with a lot of the scumbags who cheat and steal without remorse. There are two types of people on Listal: people who care about the site and follow the rules, and those will do ANYTHING to get votes and points. The latter are the ones that are screwing us all over.

I'm disgusted by these people because they're wrecking it all for everyone. The spammers, plagiarizers, fake accounts, porn uploaders....How can anyone sit idly by as all this unfolds before their very eyes? Sure, we can choose not to look at the front page, to not look at the new lists section, to not look at the update feed, to not look through anything, i.e. cut ourselves off completely from the entire site, but that's not gonna cut it for a lot of people. This problem is everybody's problem.

I don't enjoy having to constantly complain, but seriously, the shit is getting extremely out of control. Moderators need more power, rules need to be stricter, certain users need to be banned; there is a LOT that could be done to eradicate this issue and sadly nothing is being done. I love Listal and I don't wanna see it all go to pieces, to see it get ravaged and destroyed when there was already a way to fix it.

OK, one thing that I'm going to say in defense of Tom. From an system admin perspective it is very difficult to get proof that two accounts are in fact the same person. People do not have fix IP addresses and each time you restart your computer your given a dynamic IP address. Depending on who your ISP provider is and depending on how those addresses are handled farther up the chain... you could be looking at potentially hundreds of different IP addresses from one uers. Now multiply that by the number of people who log into listal every day and you start to see that IP-Search-And-Conferm is antiquated.

I personally am an ass and rotate the IP address on my router as well as the IP address on my computer. A little old school paranoia, I also change all my passwords every six months again old school IT habbits.

However, I think one solution and one that I don't know why isn't done... is just changing the password on those accounts so that they can't log in. Banning people based on Email address information is a lot more effective then banning someone based on IP addresses.... sure the 'nightmare user' can create a new email account and then your back to square one... but it would be a place to start. Again... just IMO and based on limited knowledge of internet security.

OK, well enough from the flying evil monkey for one day, off to watch movies but if anyone knows of any relatively inexpensive 'hit squads' we could always approach this whole situation from another angle. (Best to send me a private message)

Thanks for explaining that to me, I know that people can play around with their IP addresses, but I didn't know specifically how. I get that it's pretty hard to get rid of someone when you can't even pinpoint what their IP really is. So I do sympathize a lot for the moderators and Tom, who have to deal with the tough technical aspects of it all. But the sooner some kind of action is taken, the better. And I think announcements keeping us all up to date on what's being done about the spamming-porno-fake-accounts situation would be great and take a load off of my mind.

The thing is, most fake accounts are obvious with certain users. We really don't even need IPs. There is already enough proof as it is. For example this account is obviously that of a certain user or one of her friends, all it has done is create an account and mass vote on lists from specific users: raza2013.listal.com/
(And, Tom, please please please delete it!!!!)

But if banning IPs is not practical, then I guess the accounts need to just keep on being deleted and the e-mails blocked. I think it will discourage them. Like meganfan used to have 10+ fake accounts, now she appears to just have one.

It's just as easy to make a new email account as it is to make a new account here. I really don't think that will slow them down. But I agree that IP's are a shifty business. There's really no easy solution other than to just delete fakes when they're found.

But I think it should be taken further. Maybe if a list is proven to have a certain percentage of votes from fake accounts, it should just have its vote count totally reset or the points earned from that list stripped. Just something. There needs to be more punishment for when fakes are found. Just having them deleted is not enough to make them stop doing it again.

^ I agree that the there should be other consequences. Your suggestions are great.

But at the very least, these accounts need to actually get deleted. The fact that that's not being done is beyond sad.

i dont know who is he raza2013.listal.com/
but he votes for me..but sure its not me..

If it really is not you (not that I'm saying I am convinced it's not you), then it is one of your friends. All it does is vote for you and your friends lists; that account has no other purpose on this site. I actually don't care to debate which one of you guys fake account it is, it just needs to be deleted.

And the same goes for all Carryonbuffs fake accounts.... they have got to go.

I don't know about the specific cases that have been mentioned here, it's not up to me to say, but speaking in general I noticed that some users who *might* be fakes... share the following traits in common:
1.vote for the same members' lists, images, etc.,
2.write messages similar in content and style,
3.sometimes they post and vote and so on in sequential time frames, meaning, for instance, that user A1 is active 9.00AM to 9.30AM, then user A2 is active 9.32AM to 10.00AM.
4.same IP, I guess, but only Tom can verify connection logs.

I think they may not always be the same IP due to rotating IPs or accessing internet in different locations.

There's more than enough evidence of Carryonbuff's aforementioned actions. If Listal's problems are going to solved one step at a time, the termination of his account should be the first step.



To emphasize on Orpheus' point, what's there to gain from accumulating the most points, it's not like a pot of gold comes out of your computer when you reach a certain amount.

The only true rank you can earn is the respect you get from fellow Listal members.

Come on people, join the resistance! We aren't going to let Listal turn into Rotten Tomatoes or the IMDB film boards.

^ XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Perhaps someone should start a suggestion for it in the suggestion section.

Anyone who has not seen this amazing list by Jaytoast about problems on Listal should check it out: www.listal.com/list/going-to-hell

I think it pretty much sums up all the frustrations we have been feeling

I don't get it either.

I think Tom blocked CarryonBuff's lists (from his main account) from being promoted to the front page and deducted a significant amount of points from his account for spamming. So I appreciate that Tom has at least done that. But his fake accounts are beyond obvious and I have no idea why nothing has been done about them.

I think maybe he's logging on to different computers or something for his other accounts so the IPs are different or something. But, like you said Orpheus, there is overwhelming evidence that those accounts are all fake, so who cares what the IPs say.

And like Michael M., it annoys me when his multiple accounts vote for my lists. I don't want his spam votes.

I agree with you, the point system should go. It just encourages way too much spamming.

Spamming should be punished harshly and in a timely manner. That's the problem. I, like others, reported spammers, but some of them keep spamming. For instance this user: foshen.listal.com/