Stroumf's Spree on the Game Database

[DoorKnobHandle]

The user Stroumf has just registered today and mass-downvoted/flamed a lot of AGS games in one swoop. Interestingly enough, he also seems really enthusiastic over some select other titles. At any rate, his comments and votes are entirely unreasonable and there is obvious bad intent going on. Can we remove the user, his comments and votes please? Is that even possible?

I made this thread because I've never come across anything like this on the AGS games database, so I'm not sure how to handle it. I really hope we're not just going to have to 'deal with it' as game authors. Would be a shame!

[AGA]

stroumf has actually made an equal number of negative and non negative comments: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/recentcomments/.  Do you really think this is inappropriate?  Should people only give positive comments?  Admittedly the negative comments aren't too politely worded, but they're not that harsh.

[DoorKnobHandle]

I very much believe critical comments and votes are not only okay but important.

I'm not sure why you think comments such as this one on Blackwell Legacy for example are okay, though:

I bought ( original !!! ) this game... UHHHH, it would'nt work... the demo did. No... not to happy with this. 6.99 in the trashbin.
No garantuee, no help.

Or, on RAM Ghost:

A bad copy of a very stupid game: little computer people.
If you wanted to make a good game like sims 1 or virtual families, you failed. This is crap.

And yes, he also treated my latest game extremely unfairly. And, yes, that's how I took notice of his voting/comment spree.

I guess it all boils down to this: when a freshly-registered user goes ahead and gives 15 games a comment in one go and, while some of them are 'okay', a number of them are also of the quality above - is there some moderation going on? Or is that considered okay on the AGS forums? Where do we draw the line?

[Ali]

He also accuses Coin Operated Afternoon of containing a trojan. But since it's over 300mb, I don't fancy testing to see if he's right.

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/1657/

[Ryan Timothy B]

Stroumf and springthoughts wouldn't happen to be the same person, are they?

Both registering around the same time and rating nearly the same games.

[selmiak]

what a troll! At least he disguised his hatecomments with some comments on rather older games that are no adventures at all. Since the IP is saved for some time to not boost up the download counter, would it be possible to investigate if he even played, resp. downloaded all these games. If yes, then, meh, that's like... his opinion...

[AGA]

Stroumf downloaded three of the games they rated.  Although the IP logging has only actually been in place for a few weeks, so it's possible they downloaded the other games a while ago, and didn't get around to rating until now.

Stroumf and springthoughts are in completely different countries, so them being the same person seems unlikely.

[Ali]

Springthoughts was really nice about Nelly Cootalot, so I hope they're real!

[Ghost]

Benefit of doubt. Some comments sound clumsy/harsh but nothing sounds as if they just posted generic random phrases without playing the games. And it IS the comments section, not the "praise the game" section. I like to think that the guys really downloaded a wad of games, and got so interested that they registered- since they really seem to like quite a lot of them.
If we allow people to give feedback, and even ENCOURAGE THEM to give feedback, and make our game rating system based on feedback, then we shouldn't be surprised that we get feedback.

In the case of his comments on Blackwell, I remember that there were several complains about the Steam version not running without a little tinkering. Could well be that this caused his frustration.

About the Trojan comment, that can happen. False alerts are common on certain antivirus programs.

In the case of RAM Ghost, not liking it is* a valid opinion, as is liking it, and I got both 

--
* I diagree that Sims1 is a good game though. Sims 2, on the other hand, is awesome!

[Crimson Wizard]

Not everyone can/wants to choose words when commenting whatnot. It looks like Stroumf is an expressive person, and he throws in what he got in his mind.

[Slasher]

I have also had a negative comment from this guy. It seems he had a Trojan alert and about how it took 32 minutes to download my game.

Am I feeding a troll?

You can't expect to always get good comments so I guess I'll let it pass.

[DoorKnobHandle]

So if you give this guy benefit of the doubt, Ghost or anybody else, you actually believe that Spoumf downloaded 12 out of 15 games he rated during his spree, what, at least 6 months ago, before IP logging was enabled? And that he either kept these around on his HD for all this time to just play them now or he played them back then and still remembers enough of them to just now, for some reason, register an account here on AGS and go on his spree? And it gets even weirder than that, because almost all the games he covered (except for his random super positive comments) are games that had just a day ago been played and commented on by springthoughts? I think it's pretty obvious he looked at the games that recently had comments section and simply commented on these, mixing in random super positive comments to make it look less obvious.

Anyways, I can personally live with my hard work being shat on like that. It's annoying but I can deal with it and it's not a big deal in the long run, it's the internet. The problem, when this is ignored, however, lies with commercial games. What's stopping you, me or anybody else on the whole wide internet (maybe even someone from a competing commercial game), from registering an account on our beloved AGS site and making false claims/flat out lying ("I got a virus from this game, don't touch.", "worst game ever", "game didn't work") about commercial games and actually causing a lot of financial damage? We're seeing more and more commercial AGS games and I don't think game authors of these titles are going to want to put their games up on the database anymore if they aren't protected against this. How many people would buy an AGS game if the latest comment on it (heck, you can have multiple of these accounts) are claiming the game is broken or that it contains a virus?

And please don't confuse this with actual critical comments, that's an entirely different matter. Once again, criticism is important and good in general and for the AGS game database - but there is criticizing and then there's shitting on games, lying about them and such.

Food for thought, at any rate.

[Slasher]

And who is 'johnatan;?

Oh well, best get on with life.

[st.]

I don't have anything to do with the user named Stroumf.
To me he seems like someone that either wanted to get quick attention, or had some fun messing around with random comments.
I would not have given him a second thought were it not for this post. He isn't serious. And I don't think anyone would be drawn away from your
games by his rushed, unbalanced comments.

I replied because I was a little surprised by being thought the same with that character. When I came here I felt pretty bold because I managed to make a game of my own. I thought I would make my voice heard. But after some consideration and a private conversation with Sunny Penguin I realised that I was a bit unreasonable. I had to adapt to the whole community and find my own place in it. My recent comments were honest, although here and there perhaps a little exagerated. I ment to express the positive mainly and to advise the interested player. If my comments sound silly - then I was silly when I wrote them. I am not ashamed of this - I wanted to see those games as they are and perhaps filled some gaps in my understanding with my imagination. But really, I am open to your opinions and ready to modify or redraw my comments if they offended you. I didn't mean to harm.
As from the point of view of my game - you may not have liked it, but does it give any indication of Stroumf's personality ?

I realise that not knowing me causes you to doubt my intentions. I am prepared to turn inactive and return only with new games, not through comments. I would not hold it against you.

[Calin Leafshade]

Looks fine to me. All his comments seem to be reasonable and certainly not trollish even if some are negative.

[Crimson Wizard]

@DKH: life is full of strange coincidences. The guy could easily see springthoughts's comments about games he played long ago and decided to throw in his irritation. Then he realized he can comment other games he liked, and did that. I too add comments for several AGS games in a row sometimes when something occasionally makes me remember I haven't done that before. E.g. I commented Resonance and Cat Lady only after AGS Awards Ceremony, although I played them long before.
Also, although I never had any commercial releases, but I do not think that random comments like that can spoil reception, they look pretty weird surrounded by more rational and well-explained comments.
And regarding viruses... I guess some people are over-paranoid (perhaps having PC infection experience in the past). I see comments like that everywhere on the Web where download links exist.

@springthoughts: I feel sorry you've been involved in this, but don't worry too much, it sometimes happen during troll hunts . I remember I was taken for other person's duplicate two times in my life. Can be pretty annoying indeed.

[Gilbert]

The "virus" thing could also come from those free file hosting sites, which provide a "download accelerator/manager" or whatever link alongside with the actual download link. These utilities are usually advertised as harmless or beneficial to the user, or are presented so it's really hard to tell which is the actual link to the file (in some cases these links could have download buttons much larger than the actual links), but we all know these things are nothing more than viruses, Trojans or Adware.

This is how the Internet works anyway, and people having enough experience with surfing the web should be able to tell what should or shouldn't be clicked. Normally the real file downloaded is safe, but to be sure just install a virus scanner and update its database regularly to minimise the risks.

Well, sometimes people use installers which prompt the users to install stuff such as search bars and the like, which IMO are the same kind of crap and is even more dangerous as it is easy to click through an installation process without really reading the messages.

[AGA]

I think if there are comments about viruses, it's the game author's responsibility to reply assuring people this was a false positive.  I think it's reasonable enough for someone to post saying they downloaded something that appears to be a virus; they're doing the community a service if they're making people aware of a genuine virus, but as long as the author can ensure that's not really the case then there's no harm done.

[Stupot]

It could be that he has just decided to leave a bunch of back-dated comments on the games he has already played.
We can't complain about that, since we've actually been encouraging people to do just that.  People don't comment enough. Maybe he even saw this thread.

[Snarky]

It seems that "Stroumf," "johnatan" and "HeiBe Lolita" are all the same person. They're posting from the same IP address, with similar email addresses, and with similar writing styles and opinions.

The accounts have been banned for a period of time (and only one will be allowed to return), and will be watched closely in the future. A number of the Games DB comments (but not all, as some seemed genuine) have also been deleted; if anyone feels others/all of them should be, mention it here. Could someone verify that the claim of a trojan in Coin-Operated Afternoon is baseless?