The Voter Fraud script that runs overnight automatically removes votes from users who serially downvote another specific user. My idea is a simple one: extend this functionality to cross-voters.
We already have mechanisms to research sock puppets. But doing so is a complex, time-consuming and subjective process having many moving parts, often requiring a cauldron and extract of unicorn horns.
What I propose is much simpler and completely objective: Invalidate cross-votes between users that rise above some secret threshold, and are seen at the same group of IP addresses.
Example, for illustrative purposes only:
User A has 1500 rep, with 50% of their votes coming from User B having 25 rep, who casts 80% of their votes against User A. User A and B are always at the same IP address(es). User B is a clear sock. Votes are invalidated during the next nightly voter fraud script run.
The advantages of this approach are:
- The rules are applied equally to everyone
- The rules don't care who the participants are; the script will work whether it is a sock or a coworker.