Gallery misconduct [ Edited ]

[TheDismalSimmer]

Sorry, so I'm a bit out of the loop here but I happened to stumble upon a forum thread a few days ago and further investigation on the gallery eventually led me to here.  I would have said something on the forums but sadly that thread is closed before I got the chance to.

So first things first. I agree with what's been said here.  In theory anyway,

However I must say that I am a bit apprehensive about campaigning to report gallery items that have a download count perceived to be too high or if the ratio of DL's / Fav's is below some certain threshold (going by the forum thread and what's been said here).  I just feel like this is going to eventually turn in a massive witch hunt where any gallery item with a DL count > X will get mass reported.  I know this is frustrating to everyone, but I think cooler heads need to prevail here.

Sure when the player base is big enough there are bound to be exploiters.  But how can you tell which is which and where do you draw the line?  Starter homes will generally have a worse DL/Fav ratio compared to artistic / niche lots, while some of the more "general purpose" residential lots will have a ratio somewhere in between.  Creators with more followers will also have better DL/Fav ratios than unknown creators, and some people who are simply shy about commenting on others' work might also have fewer favs.  So how can we distinguish between these cases (which I honestly think is the majority) and those who are genuinely cheating?  Also, what if someone uses the gallery as cloud storage and wants to add the same house to multiple save files (I'm assuming this is in the ballpark of what the loophole refers to, yes?), are they now also "cheaters"?

Also, I know several creators on the gallery who are very talented and consistently make great content.  So naturally their buildings will rank relatively highly in the popular now tab.  So are they now cheaters because they have a lot of downloads?  Sometimes the beautifully decorated mansion is popular because it is a genuinely high quality piece of work.

I'm glad this has been brought to Maxis's attention and I'd love to see a solution, but not one that involves vigilantism for reporting any creation perceived as possibly cheated.  Maybe now I'm suspicious to a lot of people here for saying this, but just wanted to give my 2 cents regardless. I'm not trying to defend the "criminals" here or condone anything, just genuinely curious and admittedly I have a bad habit of playing devil's advocate.

Unless if there's part of the story that I'm missing, and if so, I'd certainly like to know about it.  Thanks!

--TDS

[KissingSims]

I welcome the strong community of English-speaking members: ealarge_smile: But unfortunately I don't speak English so well that I can understand what is really meant. Is there someone who can translate what @FruUtter wrote into German? I have everything translated here via babelfish and unfortunately the words are translated "only" and not what is really meant, i. e. books are translated from English into German. I would like to participate But I have to say that there are members in the gallery who don't speak English. This is where the whole world joins in! I know that children are not allowed to enter the gallery and you can then assume that with the "Clear News" you reach reasonably reasonable people.

[KissingSims]

@SWSRogueLeaderHowever, there are also members with less than 1000 follower and they would like to be protected, just like me

[KissingSims]

@agrimonysDas ist so krass und einfach unglaublich was mit Charantea passiert ist!!! Und ich bin sehr traurig, bestürzt und schockiert darüber wie EA mit uns umgeht...

[KissingSims]

@agrimonysIt's so gross and just unbelievable what happened to Charantea! And I'm very sad, upset and shocked about how EA deals with us....

[GillR52]

You are correct that no one can ever no for sure who is DL cheating and that vigilantism is a poor solution. However, you may want to look closely at some of the mathematics involved. A prominent simmer with 20,000 followers averages 100 or less Dl's in a day. A new simmer with less than 100 followers gets 600 or even thousands of DL's (not a Maxis fav). Not possible. An established simmer with 3000 followers gets 10,000 DLs in a day (not a maxis fav), an established simmer with 20,000 followers never ever gets close to that. Finally, established simmers admit in writing that they do cheat, can't stop, and don't care. This is the situation--and the correct solution is for EA to address the loophole and fix it so that no one can take advantage of it. Then the Gallery will be a safer, happier place to play.

[GillR52]

FruUtter was suggesting that if everyone had access to and used the DL cheat then DL numbers would become meaningless and EA would have to start all over again with a way to structure the Gallery. I hope that helps!

[GillR52]

WONDERCARLOTTA. She has decided to leave the Gallery because she can't stand the hypocrisy and cheating any more. I hope you all know how serious this is. EA: I HOPE YOU KNOW HOW SERIOUS THIS IS!

WHAT NOW????

Do we need to start a thread titled Wondercarlotta to get EA's attention?? 

[agrimonys]

@KissingSims. This is another interesting point that you address there with the children / adolescents.
Actually, the minimum age for the gallery should be 14 years old. But I've heard that also children under 14 should be there. The majority of users here is according to my information, but over 40 years old. EA does not check the date of birth. So you can specify anything over the age of 14 when registering.
Furthermore, I do not want to know how many fake accounts are traveling here. Because anyone who has a second, third, fourth email address and enough money to buy a basic game and also the extensions, can create new accounts.

And especially with regard to the "honest" children here, who just want to play and download one or the other house or one or the other Sim, should EA take care that the Sims4 becomes a honest and secure platform and place. At the moment I think about what happens when a children is affected by cybermobbing or witch hunt in the galery. Its horrible. I don't want to imagine it.

@ GILLR52 Thanks for your contributions. I fully agree with you. That's exactly what I noticed. My sister had an average of 5% more DL per day in relation to her followers. Want to say; At about 600 followers, she had about 20 to 30 dl / day more. The number of followers on their profile is not correct since 2016. But if you go to the friends list you can still see the correct number.

EA here you realize that many things are not going right. It would be nice if you would address these issues as soon as possible and fix them

[EA_Mai]

Hi everyone,

While we understand you feel passionate about the game and you care about the Gallery, I'm closing this thread because discussing an exploit is not allowed in the forums, neither flaming.

I want to also remind everyone that this is the English section of Answers HQ, so every post should be written in English for everyone to understand. You can select a different language at the top of the page if you want to post in another language.

Thank you,

-Mai