What's to stop this type of abuse?

Well, that's a good question. There are probably a number of ways to abuse Fluther, and right now we are depending on people's good will, which is how the site runs in general.

That being said, we can (and will) put in a certain limiter, so one person can only vote for another person a small numbers of times. Good thinking, Evan. (This can also be retroactive, because the votes are saved).

nice thinking -
but honestly whats the point of having really high scores? i use fluther to spread my wisdom and get answers - not to be number 1 in the fluther community

@ben, i think it would be a bad idea to put a limiter - because there can be this one guy who always gives the right answers, and if u pit in the limiter,you cant vote for that person after a certain amount of time. you could block users from having two accounts from a single ip address

I also think users might notice. I see that mirza has a 148, and that makes sense to me, because i see him answer a lot of questions. If someone I haven't seen much suddenly has a 200 or something, I'd definitely notice.

(even though, i probably wouldnt say anything...it's as mirza said, what's the point.

If there would be one limiter to consider, maybe it would simply to put a limit on the number of "great question" scores each question can get, with the answer to no one question equalling more than 25 points or something. I dunno.

I really think the points are a little arbitrary. I see some users answering questions correctly all the time and for some reason, the question asker isn't giving out "great answer points." Also, I wonder if the points create some sort of weird competition - like, as points get higher, people don't want to reward others because they're competing with them. It'll be interesting to see how the points system evolves.

@mirza, you can't really limit accounts by IP address because many people (e.g., all AOL users) connect to the intertubes via proxies. That is, everyone behind a certain proxy will appear to have the same IP address.

I don’t see that the point system is necessarily indicative of anything yet other than frequency of use. mirza, perchik and I all have relatively high point totals, yet we have radically different areas of expertise. It would be foolish indeed for someone to take my advice over mirza’s regarding, say, programming just because I happened to have a higher point total at that time. Rather than limiting accrued points, I’d far rather see some way to eliminate some of the political shilling or nastiness that occasionally creeps up, although I must say this site is better than most. And if I’ve inadvertently done any of that, then I should be punished for the naughty boy I can be.

I guess another question to ask would be whether or not other users are impressed by a high score. For example, there are a lot of fluff responses, or posts that constitute simple exchange or banter, as opposed to being a genuine response to the question in some way.

There are no rewards that I’m aware of for having a high score, so the only logical reason that a person would do anything they can to achieve one would be to adore themselves a little bit more or receive some kind of adoration from others. If people sufficiently evaluate some of the responses of users with excessively high scores and perceive them as somewhat worthless, then their overall value drops in the eye of the beholder.

I appreciate it if someone else appreciates my responses and not my score.

It’s a tough one because the points mean a lot. Whoever has the most points will be able to…..they will…and then they can….........what do the points really mean and why would fluther limit how many times you can vote for someone? They don’t really mean anything but I gave you all a great answer and a great question.

Mirza, my husband comes here, too. He saw me busy here one day and kind of liked the concept, so he just recently joined. That’s a pretty strong argument if you ask me.