Wayneo

Gents, just a bit of commentary. For starters, those that have been here and getting notifications have noticed that 2 posts have disappeared. Each was hidden by the respective author, not me. This post has a singular focus, to stop download count spamming. That's it, that's all. This forum is rather unique, I can't think of any other board mfgr. that caters to their users like this one. I can think of two barely similar that have been completely overrun by spammers. It's too long to go through and quote comments but I'll just say this. It is clear that some registered users will just go around 'theme collecting' 4, 5, 6 at a time. There's nothing wrong with that.

Every theme on that front page 'TOP PANEL', I'll GIVE THE COUNT ON THE THEME FOR THE PRIOR DAY, MAYBE AS A REVIEW OR A COMMENT. When a NEW theme shows up, I'll do a deep dive of how it got there, starting on the 21st. Download Stats for April 18, 2021 Sorted alphabetically. Designer named. @ Commodoretheme. Downloads 5 @ Frank65theme. Downloads 11 @ Khaled shehabtheme. Downloads 2 @ Mr. Bottomfeedertheme. Downloads 1 @ Skittheme. Downloads 3 @ Stepladdertheme. Downloads 2 @ zarktheme. Downloads 1 Yearly TOP panel. Unnamed downloads Example 1 theme. Downloads 2 Example 2 theme. Downloads 2 Example 3 theme. Downloads 9 Summary: No spammy downloads for any of the named 7, plus 3 unnamed.

Every theme on that front page 'TOP PANEL', I'll GIVE THE COUNT ON THE THEME FOR THE PRIOR DAY, MAYBE AS A REVIEW OR A COMMENT. When a NEW theme shows up, I'll do a deep dive of how it got there, starting on the 21st. Download Stats for April 17, 2021 Sorted alphabetically. Users named. @ Commodoretheme. Downloads 1 @ Frank65theme. Downloads 3 @ Khaled shehabtheme. Downloads 3 @ Mr. Bottomfeedertheme. Downloads 0 @ Skittheme. Downloads 11 @ Stepladdertheme. Downloads 3 @ zarktheme. Downloads 3 Yearly TOP panel. Unnamed downloads Example 1 theme. Downloads 4 Example 2 theme. Downloads 3 Example 3 theme. Downloads 5 Summary: No spammy downloads for any of the named 7, plus 3 unnamed .

Every theme on that front page, TOP PANEL, I'M GONNA GIVE THE COUNT ON THE THEME FOR THE PRIOR DAY, MAYBE AS A REVIEW OR A COMMENT. When a NEW theme shows up, I'll do a deep dive how it got there, starting on the 21st. Download Stats for April 16, 2021 Sorted alphabetically. Users named. @ Commodoretheme. Downloads 1. @ Frank65theme. Downloads 9. @ Khaled shehabtheme. Downloads 1 @ Mr. Bottomfeedertheme. Downloads 4 @ Skittheme. Downloads 5 @ Stepladdertheme. Downloads 3 @ zarktheme. Downloads 0 Yearly TOP panel. Unnamed downloads Example 1 theme. Downloads 3 Example 2 theme. Downloads 3 Example 3 theme. Downloads 13 Summary: No spammy downloads at all for any of the named 7, plus 3 unnamed. * 2 registered forum users went around 'theme collecting' and showed up on these stats more than once.

@gwyar When a post contains both German and Ukrainian, or both German and Russian, Chrome cannot translate both to English easily. It's manual for me. (Any one) and English is easy. I appreciate you doing when it's just German and English, but not necessary. From a 'work' perspective, I think it's quicker (time wise) for me to do it.

Guys seriously, way way way back on Page 1 I referred to @zark as the unofficial theme critique master. Like you, I really only use 1 theme, mine. A warmed over tweaked, colorized version of the default. I just wanna vape. I don't want a bunch of useless shit on the screen unless I'm having a problem. I've used 'clean colors' when that very helpful designer was new, mainly to steal the font. I've used Mr.Bottomfeeder's to help with all the English translations, and the native English 'about section'. Another good theme, worthy of being 'featured'. But I always gravitate back to my own. I see visual creativity in everything by SirTimmy, but I'd say, 1 has been on my mod for about 5 minutes. Nothing wrong with it, just not my style. Seriously, beauty and creativity is different for everyone based on their likes and needs. I see many get a good review and it's all about the cool wallpaper. Here, I'll load up Gwyar's soon.

Holy jeebus. Once a user creates a theme, reviews can only be commented on by the theme owner for it to stay intact. Occasionally one of us will comment back to the user if it's a somewhat abandoned theme. Reviews are more like a personal conversation with the author. In the regular forum, here, all 3 moderators are very involved. I think I've only ever commented on two or three themes before this incident. Wouldn't a bad review from a moderator on any of your themes really really piss you off?

Chrome's translate does not work when a singular post contains 2 non English languages, so I've been back and forth manually. Just asking if you guys wouldn't mind doing one translation to English on your end. Please.

Man, we're just 3 volunteers. We do have the ability to 'pin' a Theme, and we 3 decided to pin one, when we saw this crap getting out of hand to bring a little recognition to a good helpful designer who also has a good theme. Just click the Downloads link. Not theme park or anything. That's been there a while and should be refreshed. It shows as 'Featured Downloads'. I really don't think we 3 inspect, verify, use many different themes. Maybe change the default?

@Skit Please self edit your post. Leave only positive thoughts and suggestions. For about the gazillionth time this must remain respectful. Please and Thanks man 👍 Tomorrow you will see the downloads for each of the 7 (for the 16th), and moving forward, HERE.

Unfortunately one can only use 8 rudimentary sorting options when looking at the 1,116 themes on the board. And just like many users never change/select the 'any' default regular search criteria, to 'all', in this instance they don't (in my opinion) change from 'recently updated' for Themes. Look at the options, is there a better option? Would it be good to make every downloader have to sign up, and request they leave a review? Under the About File for a theme should we request every Designer ask users to do the above, before making the public? Should I/we add that text to any theme that reaches the Top Panel if it's not there? A good designer interacts with both commenters on his theme and elsewhere. I see that often from a handful of you guys. The standard Top 5 all did that at some point. Being helpful to other Designers. I have respect for all those true Designers, you and @gwyar @Mr.Bottomfeeder@Jetro @formula 1 all included. IMHO a good theme should be simple in style with complexity in its execution. Look at vaping right now. Auto draw pods. No screen at all. A tiny % even use TC or Replay.

@zark Here it is again. Hopefully in very plain English. The themes get recognized by their download count. The only reason for anyone to fudge or fake or inflate a download count would be for internet glory or fame to make it to that panel. Except in this case it was not done singularly. 5 themes were done one shot to hide (or highlight) the prior top 2, perhaps. That is why the prior top 2 were included. And so we end up at 7. I do not know why you are nervous. Don't be nervous. Nothing has been done yet. We are just getting comments. The only suffering for you would be if some 'hater' spammed your theme to the top. See how silly that sounds? I hate @zark, let me spam his theme download count so it goes HIGHER. We/I can only do our best with the tools we have. I'm too old to play games. Nothing was done before because we hoped it would die off. I have personally spoken to 3 users on that panel right now about this issue. You being one of them long ago. NO, we do not recognize the victory of spam. We will recognize their counts daily at the top of a new post I will create next week for all to see, until Evolv can fix this issue. (For the Top Downloads panel). I have no idea who did this. Any author is certainly free to hide their themes from public viewing or downloading at their leisure. I can think of 2 who have done this long ago. Maybe their reason was out of disgust at outrageous numbers. Both you and @grass had noticed. Look at his words This is THE DISCUSSION.

@zark I/we are not blaming anyone. I personally would not want YOU to leave. Fudging the download count, for any reason is WRONG and deceitful. We are not ready to destroy anything, but even you must admit that if the download count of a theme such as yours is >20% wrong then that statistic has no value You are an engaged user and very helpful on many topics, including themes. I can only think of one user that might have a negative perception of you, and that is HIS problem. We look after an entire small community and will not play favorites. We try to be fair to everyone, but until we can stop this bad behavior, your theme like the other 6 will show a daily count of spammy and normal downloads until different themes make it onto that panel. Any new theme making it onto that panel, I'll do a 7 day look into the downloads and make it public. ... the ONLY PERSON that would want multiple downloads of a particular Theme would be the owner. Except in this case. This was clearly done to right a perceived wrong.

Here's a look at where we were, and where we are now. These are the 7 mentioned, and once again, I'm only taking a look at theme downloads since the incident. Names sorted alphabetically. Commodore theme. April 11, > 400 download count spamming, since then ~8 total and none since the 15th. Frank theme. Just way too many. Since then >20 spammy on the 15th. Otherwise, total ~20 normal. Khaled theme. starting around 7:30am > 700 download count spamming since then ~8 total mr.bottomfeeder theme. Since then 4 look normal, ~20 look spammy. Sk1t theme. starting around 7:30am > 200 download count spamming, since then ~13 total Stepladder theme. 9 look normal, ~20 look spammy. Zark theme. Just way too many. Since then zero downloads. And 3 more themes, looking back to the 11th (2 days before the incident and skipping the 13th maybe). Based on their prevalence on being on the "Top Downloads" list. NO NAMES ATTACHED Example 1 theme. 15th 4 normal, zero spammy. 14th 1 normal, zero spammy. 13th part of spam attack. 12th 1 download. 11th 5 normal, 27 spammy Example 2 theme. 15th 1 normal, zero spammy. 14th 2 normal, zero spammy. 13th 2 normal, 16 spammy. 12th 2 download. 11th 2 download. Example 3 theme. 15th 8 normal, zero spammy. 14th 9 normal, zero spammy. 13th 2 normal, 34 spammy. 12th 3 normal, zero spammy. 11th 11 normal, 20 spammy. Clearly behavior is changing. Every theme on that TOP PANEL I'M GONNA GIVE THE COUNT ON YOUR THEME FOR THE PRIOR DAY, MAYBE AS A REVIEW OR A COMMENT. Let's see who makes it to the TOP starting the 21st.

@gwyarThank you for your honesty. I can certainly understand the frustration you feel. Hopefully this topic will be the basis we all move forward from. Comrade @zark used to be the unofficial critique master. Because I'm a 'moderator' I try to stay out of reviewing or commenting on the work of others. I look at many themes but only commented publicly on two or three. That 'top panel' is a running weekly count usually hovering mid 80's to the odd 120's, so to see a theme jump over 120 in 12 hours is alarming. To see a theme jump 400 in a day is ludicrous, 600 is just downright crazy. So when 5 jump high I cannot sit back and turn a blind eye. Your themes were all originals IIRC, and I've looked deep into at least one. 👍My fear has always been that programmers like you would lose interest, and stop or leave due to the dishonesty of others. You're still a good man in my eyes.

My honest belief is that you 7 are all fallout. Just laying it all on the table, as another option. We have no idea yet how we as a moderator team will decide. Hence this conversation 😃

The 7 themes that I left the same discreet comment on. The 7 theme owners should all be aware as they were probably notified like you were, yet only you are commenting here.. In your opinion, would you consider this a respectful conversation? I do. Another option would be for us to completely delete the Themes and recreate them, attributed to the respective owner. Download count would start a zero. No comments, no reviews, no followers And I do agree, a captcha seems rather elegant as a start.

I never said the word 'attacker'. More some internet glory and fame seeker. Just saying, the ONLY PERSON that would want multiple downloads of a particular Theme would be the owner. Except in this case. This was clearly done to right a perceived wrong. I actually applaud the person because it's so glaringly obvious for all to see. We do log and can see quite a bit of information. I won't tell you what, but I will tell you the most outrageous is a user that downloaded his own theme >3,000 times. But here we sit and ponder the future of these 7. Do we hide them for a week from downloads. Let innocent downloaders get a 404? Do we start manually monitoring any theme that hits the top of the Top? And then what? Moderators leave a count and a 1 star review with that count? 3 days in a row, hide it (timeout) for a week. Do we remove that panel altogether? Thank you, I hope others speak up.

What a great comment. We moderators have been aware of the issues, but we'd prefer Evolv spend their time working on meaningful things instead of wasting time on stuff like this. Hell, one had a view count of ~260 with a download count of ~400. Obvious much. You were not the only person to comment/review their own theme, which was called out by another developer. Don't take this personally. Have any suggestions? Hell, if I knew where those counts were kept, a one line script in a Linux /etc/rc2.d file could keep it clean. (depending, depending, depending)

Today I left a comment on the Top 5 themes in the panel and the 2 prior top, that there's blatant spamming occurring. Some designers are spamming the system in various ways to make it to that top panel on the front page. JUST STOP! Some of the more ridiculous are designers reviewing their own theme with a 5 star rating. Seriously! Or how about an update on a theme that's supposed to be an unmodified 'original'. How does that get an update? Done only to make it to top of the updated list. Why would a Theme Designer download his own creation? JUST STOP! The behavior is clear, even if you try to hide behind a VPN because you're just not that smart. JUST STOP! The behavior is clear, even if you download as a Guest because you're just not that smart. JUST STOP! A 'good' theme, over time, by word of mouth or promotion will rise up to the top.