DocAndersen
Around 2.5 years ago, give or take a little time, there was a cheating problem here on Virily. People that had 2, 3 posts were suddenly rocketing up the leaderboard (Alex L reminded me to check the rankings from time to time yesterday). That was using a problem on the platform. That is why when someone shoots up the rankings quickly, most of us that have been around Virily for a while wonder. Yesterday @Ghostwriter posted that she had encountered a problem. She reached out to the Admin team, and they informed her that it was a glitch. It sadly isn’t a glitch. One of the bugs that the cheaters exposed in the platform and one that sadly still exists was saving drafts
Initially, it appears only to be saving drafts of polls. Here is what happened (back in the dark ages of Virily). Someone would create a poll. Then they would save a draft. They would open the draft and then save it again. Some people did this 100, 200, or although I cannot verify this even more. By the time they published the quiz (or some never even published it) they were receiving 2000, 3000, and more Virils per day. Some of the “cheaters” were earning 10,000 virils in a day, never commenting, posting, or doing anything other than creating polls, saving them, opening them, saving them again. The result was a change to the platform, and the now hated message “creating huh?” when you do that (save a quiz multiple times).
The other issue, it wasn’t really a scandal but it was a little on the edge of cheating, was the comment issue. There were a lot of people that did one of two things.
1.Posted extremely short comments (nice, beautiful)
2.Copied and pasted their comments from post to post
Those two created two other changes to the platform. The first one caused the creation of the minimum comment length rule (20 characters). The section forced the creation of the report button. In theory, comments that you find offensive or that is spam can be reported. The reality is the only ones the moderators will delete forever are the Spam comments.
Sometimes the sins of the past bite you in the future. If you see someone go from 0-60 on Virily, you have to wonder.
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Question of
Did you know about the two previous issues here on Virily?
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Yes
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No
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Question of
The community would love shorter comments, but you understand why they can’t right?
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Yes
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No
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Question of
Do you wonder when you see someone moving very fast here on Virily?
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Yes
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No
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Question of
Have you ever reported a comment?
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Yes
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No
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check out this post stripped of images
https://virily.com/art/servobot-wip/
but now check this link out
https://virily.com/item/ichi-17/
ergo, all the content remains; just truncated somehow from the parent thread…
that is interesting, why do a disconnection like that?
exactly! it makes no sense… assuming it is a bug
the only other explanation I could give would be they have a 5 tier storage system and at some point, they are pushing images to something like glacier without pushing the posts to the glacier as well. That would break the connection but both sides available.
that makes sense. but what a rookie mistake…
it was speculation on my part, but you are right it is a pretty bad mistake. I have no clue if that is in fact the impact.
most likely we’ll never know. have you talked to them about this?
if by talk do you mean have I sent the admin team an email asking, yes. have I heard back? no. I like talking to walls!
you’re underappreciated…
Thanks Alex. I am so close to giving up now.
So…some people earned money only writing drafts and cheating Virily???
yes about two years ago. It was a really rough time period!
Very enlightening. I never any of this was happening. LOL. Of course, it never took me 100 drafts to write a short post. LOL. I don’t even do 100 drafts when I am writing detailed lengthy articles. (O.o) LOL.
there were a number of people that ended up making decent money cheating until it was stopped.
For the first time, cheating hear, dear friend … I do not know what is wrong again … now I can not post …. Post’s always something … slowly I will Virily resent and regret …. I leave friends that I have found quite a few here
The cheating was long ago. But now we live with the rules because there were those who don’t follow rules.
Now when I see someone that gains a lot of Virils very quickly, I begin to wonder how they are cheating.
All I know is that if I want to make 300 viriles I have to be on my computer for at least 4 hours if I have a post … but if I don’t post the post it’s hard to reach them or not at all
That is the reality of our world now.
I get concerned when I see people suddenly making 1000, 2000 or more virils per day.
I figure they are cheating somehow.
I didn’t notice this because I’m not deepening so much … I have enough of my problems with Virily
i understand – it is something that I try to forget. But then it comes back and well we have to remember!
Q: Did you know about the two previous issues here on Virily?
Yes (5 votes) – 45%
No (6 votes) – 55%
Q: The community would love shorter comments, but you understand why they can’t right?
Yes (10 votes) – 100%
Q: Do you wonder when you see someone moving very fast here on Virily?
Yes (7 votes) – 70%
No (3 votes) – 30%
Q: Have you ever reported a comment?
Yes (3 votes) – 30%
No (7 votes) – 70%
I didn’t know these issues. I always save posts to draft, and publish them later, but I haven’t encounter any issues so far.
I think it’s these cheaters that make the Virily team busier and not able to respond to all our questions sometimes….
i do wonder if that did cause part of their unwillingness to communicate now. They had to manually adjust the dashboard for a lot of users.
some folks might consider exploiting a bug to be a valid strategy, but the admins don’t…
The reality of a zero day, is that it is a flaw on both sides. A flaw in the code and a flaw in the person willing to use that to their advantage.
two wrongs don’t make a right, but they do make an exploit…
yup. I am really concerned that the change in Virily (create button) was actually an attempt to close an exploit. I think there is a user that has found the exploit and is moving up the list fast.
why wouldn’t the admins simply close the account of any user they find blatantly exploiting the site?
that is a great question, but you have to prove it first…
if they have no posts, then how are they earning virils? they can’t make that many from replies alone…
the problem is there are a number of posts by the people I am watching but none of them are exploding.
On the most commented list once a week.
based on that they would probably ear 8,000 or less virils per month. They are well past that.
tell the admins, see if they do something. they’ve got more access to metrics than we do, so it should be pretty obvious…
I did. I continue to, so far only the sound of crickets!
you’ve done all you can do…
I thank you, that is very nice to say.
But I am going to go to Eugene Debs and paraphrase –
“as long as others cannot use the platform, I am in pain.”
hopefully it is resolved by the time you get back
based on what I saw (was on facebook group for a bit) it hasn’t
it is getting worse as far as I can tell
people with the create issue are creating new accounts.
i am concerned with the inability to fix this issue for a number of reasons.
that’s because it has many troubling facets…
the oldest accounts are safe. The newest accounts are safe. I worry about that. It makes no logical sense.
The new accounts are setup the same was as the middle accounts and the old accounts.
well I have plenty of old posts that had their images stripped out of them
you are the second person that has mentioned that. I suspect that is a storage issue, but I haven’t looked at my really old posts in a long time.
those images are still on the server, you can search them individually. they just don’t show up in the post as a whole
why would that be the case, that makes no sense at all. I just looked up a post from 11 months ago (of mine) none of the pictures are attached anymore.
want to know why? ask a fortune teller… but for a more detailed explanation of what’s happening, read my new comment
some of my oldest posts did not have searchable images. Unless you actually knew the picture ID.
yes, you need to know the ID for that trick to work. my point being; the content is still there, so virily gains no savings from this bug but considerable losses
you are right, that makes no sense. From the gallery, it appears the pictures are gone. I am still rooting around.
I remember the site Bubblews that it burst due to the spamming in the site.
Many writing sites implode for that very reason. The reality of any site that lives on advertising is the impact of spammers!
I didn’t know about this “cheating”, now I hear it for the first time. I never keep posts in drafts. I compose the post and send it for approval immediately. Even so, yesterday I lost the create button (even today I don’t have one). I really don’t know why I would be bitten by old sins and not my sins. I’m doing it fair (now I feel like a criminal)
The create button is different. Not sure why it is gone.
The impact of the cheating over the years, has bitten all of us. It is a little sad.
Unfortunately, it “bites” me whenever there are any problems. Unfortunately, it “bites” me whenever there are any problems. I wonder what they are doing for the third day so that the problem is not solved yet, and only with some members and with me
My fear is that it is a code change that was made. But I don’t know, I am so sorry it has bitten you. I have been bitten in the past it is very painful.
Did such a problem occur again, Doc?
Hope not!!!
no the error message (cheating huh?) is still in the system and bit somebody yesterday. No the problem is not back. The impact is still here!
🙂
Oh, I see… Well, the impact is usually a long consequence, right?
Yes the impact always lasts longer than the initial event. 🙂
Well there is a saying “What goes around comes around!”
I never knew people did that but somehow it doesn’t surprise me.
it was a tough time for everyone. both issues caused all of us to change how we interacted with Virily.
Hopefully those times are gone. The sun is shining here today!
I would like to know why admin reached out to Ghostwriter but not the rest of us with major issues. Inquiring minds would love to know… Virily where are you?
Technically she reached out and they responded to that.
we have sunshine but enough wind oh boy!
I do remember. Traf admitted to scamming. You called him out on it and told him how disappointed you were with him. I was too. I did think that the problem had been fixed, so this is new to me. Thanks for the heads up. Yes, I have used the report button, more in the first few years than now. I haven’t had to use it but a few times this year. Some spammers did get in as you know.
The scammers getting in are less and less often. I wanted the moderators to give authors control over the comments on their posts, that would fix that problem forever. But so far silence.
Yeah, Traf was a character.
Hmm.. I have faced this Cheating Huh ( not creating Huh ) thrice last week. Since posts were not getting approved I just saved them as drafts to push them out later.
I had no clue that there was a bug.
Nope. I have never reported anyone’s comments so far, had no need to thus far.
I have no problems writing long comments ,but there are times I really don’t know how to respond to short comments which kind of keesp me wondering if the person really read the ;post.
i keep a list of people I know don’t read posts!
Cheating huh, sorry spell check got me.
It was also Quiz not poll but the error worked on both.
There was one user that went from not on the top fifty list to 4th and had 3 posts ever. (114,000 virils in less than a month) that person never read or commented on anything.
Interesting. I wonder why people use such unfair means to earn , do they realize that their actions would kill the goose that laid the golden eggs.
Honestly I do not know the answer to that. It is why when I see someone move very fast on the board (ranks) I worry.
I think I need to simply leave it all alone. It’s already been one heck of day and the sun still is not up!
Send me a fun picture I will post another wild story!