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Instead of working on fun stuff like 2007 awards nominees layout or our internal admin page overhaul, I got to spend the morning fixing the Awards section in the Portal front page. Specifically the Turd of the Week award.

The CSS isn't that complicated. But it's definitely made more challenging when you consider it's a heavily viewed portion of the site, located in an area on the page where it affects the position of the pods around it, and that it needs to be tested in Firefox, Safari, Opera, IE7, and IE6 (where the bug was more than just a visual thing, it actually pushed boxes around making the page harder to navigate). So not a hard thing to implement, but something I had to recheck a dozen times before making the decision to push a new stylesheet live. The good news is that my fix didn't require anyone else, I didn't have to bother any of the programmers to change any of their code; something I could just tell Tom about after I fixed it.

Then there are the larger questions. Do we delete the user who so delighted in making the site look ugly for a time? ("Nah, not *that* big of a deal"); Do we ditch Turd of the Week altogether since it's just a headache anyway ("No Tom, let's not be hasty"); Do I quietly delete the review of the user who claims the ugliness brings a tear of joy to his eye? (Nope, that would be an abuse of power).

I could have simply deleted the entry, which would only be a short-term fix. Instead, it wasted around an hour of my time, something I hate to admit to the little bastards that revel in that sort of thing -- little attention whores love to know when they get a reaction.

But I share all of this for two reasons:

First, to say that these stupid little exploits are only temporary. Our fixes are permanent. In their own way they would even be a fun challenge if it didn't mean diverting our attention from launching new features.

Second, a warning to people who defend these lame movies by marking scathing reviews as "abusive". If I see a review calling these submissions out for what they are I tend to clear them of any wrongdoing. So anyone jumping on the bandwagon and flagging comments that are accurate in pointing the finger at spam groups, they're going to get a surprise in the form of a garbage whistle.

So keep playing your little pranks. The rest of us will just keep besting you.

Updated: 04/02/08 4:22 PM Log in to comment! | Share this!

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81 Comments

Apr. 2, 2008 | 4:24 PM LtMcMuffin says:

I think you're just nervous that people will mark your "greetings fucktard!" review as abusive. And wouldn't it be great if the dolts on Rage's abusive thing tried getting your review flagged? ^^

Apr. 2, 2008 | 4:38 PM bob responds:

I stand by my record as having generally "Helpful" reviews.

Plus, IMHO, spam flash submissions shouldn't be afforded the same protections as people with good intentions.

Apr. 2, 2008 | 4:35 PM SBB says:

to delete turd of the week is the best idea I've heard so far this goddamn year, and I'm not even kidding.

Apr. 2, 2008 | 4:39 PM Phil says:

:///

Apr. 2, 2008 | 4:49 PM RockinPunk says:

And bob reigns supreme, once again.

Apr. 2, 2008 | 5:13 PM Goat-Man says:

I say we resort to getting rid of a user once they reach like 10-15 spam flashes.
Some fort of rule to that extent.
Seriously, I hate filing through 100 gay spam movie to find one thats decent.

Apr. 2, 2008 | 5:18 PM bob responds:

The theory here is that the good stuff rises to the top on its own while the crap sinks to the bottom. So far we're still able to achieve that, and there are a lot of people who like to mess around today but will likely become the great artists and programmers of tomorrow. Let's hope our theory holds true.

Apr. 2, 2008 | 5:37 PM GuyWithHisComp says:

Yeah, the Turd of the week award is really stupid. It just encourages people to do bad flashes (most of the time anyway).

Apr. 2, 2008 | 5:50 PM X-Gary-Gigax-X says:

We will destroy you, mark my words, Bobby. >:D

Apr. 2, 2008 | 5:50 PM Sir-Nuts says:

Why don't you delete anyone who spams the Portal?

Everyone would love it (except for the spamers), and I bet you would too.

Apr. 2, 2008 | 5:58 PM bob responds:

Because on an average day their lameness doesn't spill out past their own pathetic circle.

Apr. 2, 2008 | 6:40 PM Sir-Nuts says:

You're right, it only makes us mad when it comes out. They only get their attention when it's into the new submissions part.

But still, it occupies space. If you deleted everything useless by them, you'd save a lot of space. No one watches them, anyway.

However, I think if you deleted all of them, they would submit even more crap... Tough situation, isn't it?

Also, how are the Tank Trophies going?

Apr. 2, 2008 | 7:58 PM Wiiporter says:

Beat them mofos to da ground.

Word.

Apr. 2, 2008 | 8:37 PM Ansel says:

I love you, bob. Nice work :3

I like the Turd of the Week. It's always good for a laugh, whether it was won on purpose or not.

Apr. 2, 2008 | 8:52 PM LordZeebmork says:

Heh, about time that was fixed. Does this mean it won't fuck up the names of submissions containing characters outside the range of English letters, numbers, and punctuation? And why did that happen in the first place?

Apr. 5, 2008 | 10:30 PM bob responds:

Don't give me that shit. Copying/pasting the copyright symbol into the title in the first place was something you shouldn't be doing anyway.

Apr. 2, 2008 | 9:14 PM Shakyjake says:

I think you're right about not deleting spammers, i think if you did then that would just cause people to start multi-accounting

i just tend to mark it zero and move on, safe in the knowledge that i have done my part, and in doing so gained a blam point =D

Apr. 2, 2008 | 10:11 PM Sir-Nuts says:

Looks like they're doing it again. Look:

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view /433237

In the audio.

Apr. 5, 2008 | 10:10 PM bob responds:

Yeah, something else I'll have to get too, tho it's a section that's getting overhauled anyway soon.

Apr. 2, 2008 | 10:38 PM fetusdoctor says:

Turd of the week being the same spam all the time... I can understand. But Underdog of The Week has been taken over by the same people. I used to love watching the Underdog movies, but now it's always Kitty Krew or whatever the fuck crew is popular right now.

Not sure if that's anything you can fix, but it would be nice to have the old Underdog's back.

Apr. 2, 2008 | 11:03 PM Sparkwattclock says:

hey bob, hows the new guy working out? Cuz ross was cool. Anyways what system do you guys use? Phbb, Smf, Invison?
I always wanted to know because you said stylesheet. Well.

Apr. 5, 2008 | 10:11 PM bob responds:

Not sure I follow. All of our stuff is hand-coded. Everything.

Apr. 2, 2008 | 11:32 PM Rudy says:

My school is teaching us HTML and CSS codes in Dreamweaver next week. I WANT TO BE A GREAT PROGRAMMER LIKE YOU ONE DAY, BOBBBBBY.

<3
:l

Apr. 5, 2008 | 10:12 PM bob responds:

Well, first step is to ditch Dreamweaver as soon as you can. It's a good starter tool, but don't be afraid to get in there with a text editor to learn the code.

Apr. 2, 2008 | 11:38 PM Sterance says:

bob... just delete users that exploit temporarily. or wipe their record (start them off at lvl 1).

better yet, remove their privelage to submit flash (if this is possible).

its not even true exploiting; if they somehow hacked the NG server and put a giant penis for the icon of pico, that i would at least admire. this is just jamming unicode characters into random places. a monkey could figure out how to do it.

no one would miss them bob...

Apr. 3, 2008 | 12:17 AM Hylian-Mafia says:

Yeah, you are filling in for Ross's New Postings!!! Anyways, just take off the Turd of the Week they abused it and now they taken it away from everyone else.

Apr. 5, 2008 | 10:13 PM bob responds:

Heh, I could never take his place. He's a much better writer and more level-headed.

Apr. 3, 2008 | 3:38 AM Omgee says:

I'm not so sure that clearing the flags on a review that is legitimately abusive is the right thing to do. There are ways to let an author know that a flash is useless spammy shit without abusing that author. For example, one could say, "There was little point to this flash. There's only one frame and a big, uncompressed song, and no preloader. Ways to improve: add a plot, animation, pictures, etc." That's not an abusive review. "Get a life, you pathetic spamming fucker, and stop submitting flash here or I kill you!!11!111one" *is* abusive, regardless of who the author is or whether or not that statement might be true.

The system works because users moderate themselves on the reviews, flagging reviews that are abusive to flash authors. If I choose to flag a review that is legitimately abusive, that does not mean I am defending a shitty flash; I am just preventing the review TOS from being violated. Why should I be punished with a garbage whistle for following the rules?

I don't think review flaggers should be punished in this case. If spam flash is a problem, simply delete it, or up the threshold for a submission to pass judgement, or do away with the incentives to manipulate the system -- like Turd and Underdog. Personally, I enjoy seeing those movies, but if it's that much of a headache for both admins and users, perhaps those awards should be done away with.

Apr. 3, 2008 | 4:17 AM Little-Rena says:

Can't delete turd, it's your only award!!

Silly exploiting things though but it gets fixed in the end, which is good to see. So uh, I dunno what to say, sorry you wasted time, but it fixed something.

Apr. 3, 2008 | 4:59 AM Cyberdevil says:

No fun stuff you say? CSS is one of the most marvelous forms of entertainment availible. :P

Apr. 3, 2008 | 9:10 AM Matt-Frozenfire says:

I would Make Getting Turd of the Week a BAD thing. Getting punishments for earning it. (Maybe a LONG submission Suspension along with a List of Things they should do on their next flash by the time the suspension is over.. Like spend a lot of time on it and pre-plan it out)

Also Review Crew Pick should be Picked by Proper Reviewers Only, who get some recognition on their page for being in the Review Crew. (Maybe a Badge on their Page) Also the Crew Should consist of a large number of active people that give Great, indepth reviews (at least most of the time)

Apr. 5, 2008 | 10:16 PM bob responds:

LOL not a bad idea. Like revoke submitting power for a week (you know, to give them time to work on something better, right?). Same should go for obituaries. I'll see what Tom thinks about the idea.

Apr. 3, 2008 | 9:24 AM lazydoctor says:

Oh bob... you are so ethical and tough it makes me wet.

Apr. 3, 2008 | 10:26 AM CaptainBob says:

Sparkwattclock: NG uses a custom built BBS that Ross made, they don't use any pre-packaged message board solution.

I support removing the Turd of the Week award.

Apr. 3, 2008 | 11:42 AM FBIpolux says:

Yet, look at your whistle bob ;)

Apr. 5, 2008 | 10:17 PM bob responds:

It's from clicking things at random while testing it out. It's really only barely garbage, and I like the way it looks so I don't bother with trying to polish it up.

Apr. 3, 2008 | 1:50 PM EvilSeed says:

Hi Mr. Bob

Turd of the week is supossed to showcase new artists who dont get too high scores because, well, they are new and are just learning flash or whatever... right? Well, it isnt working the way it should be then, the only ones getting that award are spam flashers, and even the spam groups (you know wich ones) try hard to get that award... how? spamming on purpose... so, if it isnt working the way is meant to be, i think it should be removed...

But a better solution is removing spam flash... seriuosly, why dont you people just try to remove spam flash, why dont you do guard in the portal?... and the following is an idea that i would like you to think about... why dont you assign some trustable users to guard the portal, and report spam flahsers, and spam movies... really, i would love to be one of them, but my judge maybe isnt very reliable.

so ok, too much talking....

Apr. 5, 2008 | 10:18 PM bob responds:

Oh, we have that system alllllll mocked up. With the new guy here, we should be rocking and rolling on that any month now....

LOL we're busy working on sooo much other stuff first.

Apr. 3, 2008 | 2:53 PM MasterSarge300 says:

Actually it gets pretty fucking annoying now. And the users like Betty are just as annoying as the others. He spams other's profile page and flame them! Betty has 3 accounts and he spamed me twice! Its getting so annoying and I wish this shit stops!!! And second the flash movies are just as bad as everything thats in here. Is there anything we can do to resolve this situation Bob? Cuz im pretty pissed right now. And not just at Betty.

Apr. 3, 2008 | 3:58 PM LordZeebmork says:

shit, ignore my last comment, I thought you fixed the characterset problem but I'm not sure now. I'll test it out later or something.

But yeah, that's what you all get for not bugtesting the redesign before the release.

Apr. 5, 2008 | 10:43 PM bob responds:

You're a moron.

Apr. 3, 2008 | 4:58 PM DaVeB0T says:

"kitty krew susks"
by: zagfrog
date: April 2, 2008

y do u gus even do flash? y dont u all just go home 2 ur mommas!!!!!!!!

Apr. 3, 2008 | 4:59 PM DaVeB0T says:

"I swear this was for free blam points only"
by: UnrealCanine
date: April 2, 2008

How this made it onto the portal, is frankly a mystery

Apr. 3, 2008 | 5:01 PM DaVeB0T says:

"I disagree"
by: WhiteKingdom
date: March 4, 2008

That baby was definitely not cute.

Apr. 3, 2008 | 5:03 PM DaVeB0T says:

"this is awsomel crap!"
by: pokemon1kirby
date: March 26, 2008

wowi cant beleve how crap this is!

Apr. 3, 2008 | 5:06 PM DaVeB0T says:

"I can't take it anymore!!!!!!!!!!!!"
by: siege22222
date: 1 hour ago

There is so much shit on Newgrounds that you have to swim through it to fing something worth sinking your teeth into, and this something that is definatly not edible. This has from this day forth darkened my aura, thanks for the crap!

Apr. 3, 2008 | 5:07 PM DaVeB0T says:

"fake&crappy"
by: shadow-reaver
date: April 2, 2008

u are using the text that egoraptor used to advertise HIS t-shirt. and 1 more thing........this flah sux. blam it to h311

(if you want to rant then contact me at brandon_brooks04@yahoo.com. 13 i c t h

Apr. 3, 2008 | 5:07 PM DaVeB0T says:

"crap crappy crap crap"
by: Ifkids
date: April 2, 2008

crap

Apr. 3, 2008 | 5:08 PM DaVeB0T says:

"[No title , like everytime]"
by: Psyh
date: April 2, 2008

......................
flunk that sheet (censored xD)

Apr. 3, 2008 | 5:08 PM DaVeB0T says:

Ya get my drift?

Apr. 3, 2008 | 5:18 PM Kokojo says:

Personnaly, bob, i think this is a downfall. Most of those ''crap'' movie pass the portal, and with high scores... Flash crew/club/and some individual vote 5 just to get their vote done or for the fun of it. I don't know how the hell, but we should prevent that.

As for the reviews, i don't flag alot, but from what you said, i should be soon to that Garbage one. Holy cripes.

Apr. 3, 2008 | 5:37 PM DaVeB0T says:

I think its worse that flashes nowadays continually get Higher and higher scores. Every week we have over 5 submissions with 4.3+. It used to be that no flash had above a 4.2
I think it was Madness Apothesis that broke this cap, and with gradual effect, made users more used to over-fiving submissions.
Fuck I've said this speech over and over again, and I'm not the first to say it. The newer user base is promoting ignorance, and not deleting their abusive reviews is promoting ignorance. Hell, I think short 10 star reviews without any original feedback or opinion should be deleted too.
I doubt people who think like me will ever be pleased with other people, so..................ya.

Apr. 3, 2008 | 5:50 PM BigFuzzyKitten says:

http://i11.tinypic.com/52x730o.png
^fun with the old layout

Also why does unicode mess up in the portal?

Apr. 5, 2008 | 10:46 PM bob responds:

Because we simply don't need all the extra characters. Just stop using them. You're making places like Kongregate more appealing to a lot of people and only hurting our site.

Apr. 3, 2008 | 7:55 PM DaVeB0T says:

man I am bored

Apr. 5, 2008 | 10:57 PM bob responds:

You know, you're the first person I've ever had to ban from my userpage.

Apr. 3, 2008 | 10:07 PM WilliWowza says:

Oh bob you brute, I'm all in a fluster.

Apr. 3, 2008 | 10:49 PM MalcomFrost says:

Well, bob, I think that deleting Turd of the Week is probably the best idea I've heard. Seems more people fight over getting that award than they do for Daily 1st, which is what they should be trying to get. Turd of the Week means you suck, why would you want it? If deleting it isn't an option, then at least make it harder to get somehow. I'd also think it'd be great to have a spam flag in the whistle section.

Apr. 4, 2008 | 8:43 PM EvilEgg says:

Well my whole problem, is the way spam groups have their own guys review, or whatever just so they can take away an award from a more deserving flash.

It really pisses me off and I just can't stand any spam group.

Apr. 4, 2008 | 10:00 PM TjA says:

fix the character borders so any large character words are shortened and it only shows a portion of the title

Apr. 5, 2008 | 2:53 AM WhiteDJ says:

u rox bob!

Apr. 5, 2008 | 6:27 AM Eddie says:

They aren't "pranks", shitty movies tend to get abusive reviews, witch is a goldmine for us. We're not necessarily defending the spam flashes. :(

Apr. 5, 2008 | 1:52 PM Grammer says:

That's nice to know, but how far can I go when I'm calling out a flash as spam? I can't just say "Fuck you this is spam", can I? Where's the line?

Response is appreciated, kthx

Apr. 5, 2008 | 3:56 PM PicoZX says:

Finally! A staff member finally deletes spam! =D

Apr. 5, 2008 | 6:30 PM Kaytee says:

Does that include the bad reviews from your flash?

Apr. 6, 2008 | 2:11 AM bob responds:

Like I said, I stand by my generally "helpful" reviews (they're mostly marked as such).

Apr. 5, 2008 | 9:13 PM puddinN64 says:

You're the man!

Apr. 6, 2008 | 1:26 AM GeeBoMac says:

NOOOO!!!

Apr. 6, 2008 | 1:59 AM ParadoxVoid says:

Well I suppose this explains my new garbage whistle...
Though I have to agree with you, deleting Turd of the Week is a great idea. Why celebrate someone's apparent lack of talent?

Apr. 6, 2008 | 4:58 AM Kde777 says:

Hahahaha.. an newgrounds staff member has a garbage whistle.. like me xD.. awesome.. bob is the best..

Apr. 6, 2008 | 1:42 PM emanhattan says:

lol davebot has no life

Apr. 6, 2008 | 4:08 PM SevenSeize says:

I liked the idea another user posted on here, Matt, I think.

We should have a penalty if you win TOTW.

A week ban from the portal sounds good to me.

Apr. 7, 2008 | 9:19 AM Matt475 says:

Sorry Bob, but two wrongs don't make a right. Abuse is abuse...just because its at someone "deserving" doesn't justify it.

Apr. 7, 2008 | 9:25 PM LordZeebmork says:

waaaaaaahh I'm going to write a long angry rant about a minor formatting glitch that should have been caught in the bugtesting

oh wait, what bugtesting?

what the hell is this, Microsoft?

Apr. 8, 2008 | 3:25 PM bob responds:

We do test for bugs, we just can't account for assholes.

Apr. 7, 2008 | 9:26 PM DBlach says:

I'm not sure what the last part of your post means. Do you mean that if a user flags a review as abusive and the submission being reviewed is spam people will receive garbage whisltes? That doesn't seem to make much sense. Because even if it is spam, an abusive review is an abusive review and should be gotten rid of.

Apr. 7, 2008 | 11:10 PM tfcwonderboy says:

Thanks for the garbage whistle, asshat.
Warn us next time, pl0x.

Apr. 8, 2008 | 3:29 PM bob responds:

Chill out there, chief.

First of all, I wish you cared as much about the quality of submissions as you do about a 72 x 72 icon on your userpage. Statwhore much?

Secondly, taking advantage of someone's rage at spam submissions is a pretty slimy thing to do.

Apr. 7, 2008 | 11:33 PM Sparkwattclock says:

its sorta cool bob. I wish my crew's site could be hand coded, how do make a hand coded site? Oh and did tom finnally shave the beard?

Apr. 8, 2008 | 1:32 AM Matt-Porter says:

Go bob, glad to see you show those little punks that they can't do shit with you coding up fixes that quick. Power to us coders, peace.

Apr. 8, 2008 | 2:22 AM The-Swain says:

You left out the part where I can't stop IMing you.

BOB LOOK AT THIS LOOK AT WHAT I DID WHAT DO U THINK!!1

Making your AIM public wasn't a bad idea...until SWAIN HAPPENED.

Apr. 8, 2008 | 3:30 PM bob responds:

Yeah, that was a big part of my afternoon, too. LOL.

Apr. 8, 2008 | 2:50 AM xcs-the-mad-fan says:

Well despite your garbage whistle you dont really POST garbage. And i am one of the few who got a silver whistle to a garbage.

But rather than deleting TOTW, giving out garbage whistles. Why dont you just delete those bloody morons who send in spam and junk flash collabs. Or enable flash collabs to get blammed?

It seems more fair to majority of the community that way.

Apr. 8, 2008 | 4:41 PM liquidfire666 says:

I don't get it, why dont you just delete all spammer submissions and destory there accounts? All this new rule is doing is sending peoples whistles to garbage, not just spammers but people that want to help. There are alot of people that want to help out by marking abusive reviews and all this rule is doing is makeing there whistles garbage. 99% of all spammers are level whores, deleting there account could make them loose the will to even be on Newgrounds on their account. But whatever i'm no admid or mod so its not my call but if i were you i would just delete all these stupid spam flashes and destory the spammers accounts leaving them to keep making new ones to keep spamming and soon spamming will become old for them knowing they cant ever level up and have any voteing power,

Apr. 8, 2008 | 6:16 PM EvilSeed says:

Mhhh, but im wrong, i think... Turd of the week is not for what i said, thats underdog of the week, right?... mmmh, but still...

Apr. 8, 2008 | 7:07 PM tfcwonderboy says:

Haha, I guess I was kind of over the top. Actually, the spam in the Portal has really been annoying me, but I figured there wasn't much I could do about it, other than blam it and pray that it wouldn't get through. Hopefully in the future, there'll be new thing to prevent it.

Ah, and I honestly don't care much about my whistle status much, you've opened my eyes, kind sir.

Apologies.

Apr. 9, 2008 | 10:37 AM bob responds:

Didn't mean to be so harsh on you there, either, so I apologize as well. I guess I don't understand the whistle addiction. Check out the whistles of PsychoGoldfish and JohnnyUtah too, they've got garbage levels too.

Updated: Apr. 9, 2008, 10:40 AM

Apr. 9, 2008 | 1:14 AM thedo12 says:

my suggestion:

take out post counts from satistics, in general ive seen forums without post count meters are more intelligent then those with them. (if thats what you want)

maybe you would have to go to the persons userpage to see it.

would make a good april fools joke anyways wiping all users satistics to zero for a day.

Apr. 9, 2008 | 8:13 PM nollen says:

Well, I sure am fucking glad I don't spam.

BTW: lol that Daveb0t was spamming on a blog against spamming... :) lol

Apr. 10, 2008 | 10:36 PM ZekeySpaceyLizard says:

i once fried an egg in olive oil it tasted rather icky

Apr. 11, 2008 | 5:32 PM Penta says:

"Do we ditch Turd of the Week altogether since it's just a headache anyway?"
^Do this...

Apr. 14, 2008 | 2:09 AM 50vmp says:

Please don't kill spam movies Bob :(

Apr. 14, 2008 | 1:32 PM Da-Hui-58 says:

I agree with you there about the true reviews being called abusive. The last review I wrote for the submission "NGers are all gay shitty fags" was marked as abusive...

Apr. 15, 2008 | 7:32 AM Boberty says:

normally i dont dance around bu

Apr. 15, 2008 | 1:49 PM Goonie says:

All they want is attention. Thats all. :P

Apr. 15, 2008 | 8:35 PM Jesus-Owns-X says:

Thanks alot Bob now half of Newgrounds have garbage whistles

Good Job

Apr. 16, 2008 | 4:01 PM kodiakclock says:

hey bob welcome to the internet.

Apr. 17, 2008 | 4:27 PM AtomicBurger says:

Ironic

Apr. 18, 2008 | 9:31 PM DrJam says:

By now everyone should of worked out that NG doesn't ban users that post spam because over 40% of ad clicks come from them user.

Apr. 22, 2008 | 9:34 AM bob responds:

that's not true. most spammers use ad blocking software. we accept them doing it because it means that deep down they're lonely and love our site. we're the only thing keeping them from committing suicide.

Apr. 19, 2008 | 12:23 AM Sp694 says:

ok.... now was that april fools?

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