This should have further community input before any decision is made.
I'd like to make it known that there are ways to decrease the chance of this happening, without restricting the vote to purchased users.
- Blocking TOR users from voting (TOR provides a list that can be used to do this)
- Blocking known proxy servers, there are comprehensive blacklists of proxy IPs available to block an account
- Blocking throwaway emails
- Requiring minimum register time
- Requiring minimum post count
- Requiring minimum forum registration
We could also do it by having a point threshold, a user would have to meet X number of points to be able to vote. I'll give an example.
Number of points to vote: 10
30 points: Purchase Game
3 points: Registration date longer than X amount of days
Base point of 6 points: Meet minimum post count to get 6 points and 1 more point is awarded every time they meet X more number of posts
1 point: Uploaded avatar
1 point: Signature set
-10 points: TOR/Proxy IP
-10 points: Throwaway email
-10 points: Forum ban
Add other positive and negative factors to decide whether the person is elligible for vote, the more comprehensive the system is, the better.
Having to purchase the game to vote is fine by me. I suggest you make a poll.
