Votebot Research: Who's In?

[scikidus]

I feel as if we can better combat votebot attacks if we test the weapon ourselves. Of course, we can't do this to any actual channels, so I'm setting up a dummy research account to learn more about the intricacies of YouTube's voting system. Specifically, I will be testing:

1. Exactly how long must you wait before you can vote on a video again?

2. Does the answer to number 1 change with various criteria? (# of videos you have, your rating rate in the past, browser, etc.)

3. Does the answer to number 1 change if you do X? (including clearing all cookies, using a new browser, logging out and back in again, etc.)

That's really it. I've registered two accounts to begin the research:

http://www.youtube.com/votebotresearch
http://www.youtube.com/votebotvictim

I'll upload a video or two to the latter account, and begin testing. I ask that please, nobody else vote on videos on either account unless I ask you: other votes may be a factor, and until I can isolate it I don't want external factors.

 

[Sleazy]

My concern is that whatever information you gain from this study will be used by votebot programmers to improve their bots.

I'm not saying it shouldn't be done, just bringing up what I see to be a legitimate concern.

 

[scikidus]

My concern is that whatever information you gain from this study will be used by votebot programmers to improve their bots.

I'm not saying it shouldn't be done, just bringing up what I see to be a legitimate concern.

I realize this, but my guess is that the creators of the votebot software have already done this research to optimize their products.

 

[CosmicSpork]

The votebot software creators already know far more than we do, and possibly more than this research can glean. I wouldn't worry about that.

 

[seanThree16]

I still don't understand how the bots work. Does it take a bunch of bogus accounts or what? How can this be combated?

 

[scikidus]

I still don't understand how the bots work. Does it take a bunch of bogus accounts or what? How can this be combated?

Votebots use multiple accounts to systematically rate/view/comment on a video. This can be combated by manually attempting to fix the stats, for instance by mass-rating.