At 5/7/12 11:33 AM, SCTE3 wrote:

At 5/7/12 11:01 AM, Tycrane wrote: Just a video ripped off of Youtube:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/595072
Original video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqHeSaAIl4c

Saw that, voted 0 on both entries.

Happy 1,337 EGB! Perfect timing for the first log-in in months. michelinman checking in. See some old faces and some new ones. Glad to hear things are active as ever in here. Keep up the good work troopers.

*salutes*

Stolen audio by butchjr:

• Unpublished Submission

• Unpublished Submission

Possibly stolen flash:

• 

  by <deleted>

  Under Judgment

  (Everyone)

Definitely stolen:

• 

  by <deleted>

  Under Judgment

  (Everyone)

Original for above:
http://armorgames.com/play/13141/new-world

At 5/10/12 05:00 PM, Spretznaz wrote:

At 5/9/12 05:26 PM, SmashLuigiFan1 wrote:

At 5/7/12 05:36 PM, SCTE3 wrote: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/595091
Do not watch. Automatically puts you in fullscreen and has loud music. Does not appear to do anything else though.

He's doing it again.
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/595231

And again
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/595257

And now for the fourth time. I'm surprised he isn't portal banned already

• 

  by <deleted>

  Under Judgment

  (Everyone)

At 5/11/12 12:12 AM, Spretznaz wrote: And now for the fourth time. I'm surprised he isn't portal banned already
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/595330

He was portal banned. He created a second account to go around that. There's an i in his new account instead of an L.

At 5/11/12 08:08 AM, SCTE3 wrote: I'm going to make a guess and say that since the redesign that there is no way to give a user in the flash portal a ban yet. Hopefully that gets fixed soon. Would be very helpful.

Nope still works. Two blammed submissions gets you portal ban for 2 weeks I think.

Just a heads-up for you here:

According to Tom, this is basically where the line should be drawn on what counts as shovelware. Any more generic than that, and it's likely to be a sweatshop account. Obviously there are going to be some grey areas with which are the sweatshops and which are just generic, uncreative flash makers, but there are 2 things I can think of that you can use to spot the difference:

1. Presence / absence of ads in the flashes.
Obviously, a submitter probably isn't a shovelware account designed to generate ad revenue if it's not putting ads in its flashes. Lack of ads pretty much rules them out of being submitted for that purpose. Of course, one of them might get clever and only put ads in after their flashes pass judgement, which is why it's a good idea to re-check it after it comes out of the purple if you're unsure.

2. Amount of flashes submitted.
Again, pretty obvious, but the clue's in the term here: "Shovelware" isn't shovelware until it's being submitted by the shovel-ful. One or two random things that might bear a resemblance to something you've already seen before isn't worth bringing up, but if you come across the same submission more than 3 or 4 times with little or no real differences between them, you've got a shoveller.

For this reason, I don't think it's really worth flagging up every last thing that looks like something else that might've been submitted before (unless it's one of the really obvious ad nauseum dress-up etc. games that've already been stamped into everyone's cranium here); only when you start seeing said resemblance more than a few times should it be a cause for concern. We do want to look for new types of games they come out with (which they will, if they haven't already), but we don't want to get so strict with originality that we end up going after the wrong submitters. It's all about fairness in the portal, after all.

Just my random 2 cents on the matter. Along with a penny of unknown currency I found in the couch.

At 5/11/12 04:36 PM, Sheizenhammer wrote: 1. Presence / absence of ads in the flashes.

I had this discussion with Wade also earlier. If it doesn't have ads, there is no need to worry about it.

2. Amount of flashes submitted.
One or two random things that might bear a resemblance to something you've already seen before isn't worth bringing up.

There's an important thing that you need to remember here. A lot of the submitters are simply creating new account to work around this. We've caught gamesgrow more than once with multiple accounts submitting.

For this reason, I don't think it's really worth flagging up every last thing that looks like something else that might've been submitted before

First, I'm not sure what you mean by flagging. There is no flagging system. If you're talking about genre mods tagging stuff as deletion and shovelware I agree with you that is kind of inappropriate.

Second, I'd much rather anything suspicious get posted here (crap you can even send me pms) cause a lot of times I'll miss stuff and I see it in here and I make my own judgment (which is usually pretty good) and then report it to Wade. So far this line of communication has been working pretty well, I see no reason to change it. Much more effective than 10 people sending the same pm to Wade that probably won't get read.

Just my random 2 cents on the matter. Along with a penny of unknown currency I found in the couch.

Must've fell out of your butt crack. Let me sniff it.

Stolen flash:

• 

  by <deleted>

  Under Judgment

  (Everyone)

Original: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/349194

Lmfao, he even tried copying his profile image and everything.

I saw that account butchjr I bookmarked that page looks like he stolen lots of stuff. I remember those shovel ware accounts have like over 100 flash games dress up ,and the spot the difference. I'm glad they cant submit that amount of stuff again it was cookie cutter. I don't think they ever replied to reviews or posted on the BBS. I miss having the whistle button though having portal mods does mean that flashes getting seen to more quickly right?

At 5/11/12 04:36 PM, Sheizenhammer wrote: 1. Presence / absence of ads in the flashes.
2. Amount of flashes submitted.

What about adding the duration between flashes to that? If an account keeps piling flash on the portal every week or so, then it's shovelware; if there's a duration of a month or so, or even a year or a half, then it's not shovelware. Would that be sensible or not?

• 

  by <deleted>

  Under Judgment

  (Everyone)

Is it possible to stop this guy from making alts short of an ip ban?

At 5/11/12 11:30 PM, Spretznaz wrote: Is it possible to stop this guy from making alts short of an ip ban?

I'm pretty sure that once enough evidence has mounded up by him re submitting then Tom or Wade will step in and bitch slap him with an IP ban. Until then we can just keep at it, I like his description, the answer is just keep getting it removed.

At 5/12/12 02:04 PM, SCTE3 wrote: I can understand this. Those accounts don't seem to submit very often unlike shovelware accounts that submit their shit in a daily-weekly basis.

There's also the gray area of accounts created in the last couple days or so. I'm seeing huge numbers of possible shovelware submitted by accounts created the same day. I'm not sure if those should be automatically ruled as shovelware or should be watched for a few days to see if they continue. By "automatic" I mean accounts tha submit crap such as dress up games, or possibly games with the logo of a known shovelware site (such as games2rule) on their first day.

Kind of like SunriseKingdom which seems to be one yet all the games are done with Stencyl?

Wouldn't Stencyl actually be an easier way to quickly throw together shovelware? If you think about it, Stencyl's a free application. Even if you buy the developer package, it's still $400-500 cheaper than Flash. Also, it takes even littler effort to make a game with Stencyl than with Flash (no coding/artistic skills needed). If SunriseKingdom and games420 (their Stencyl tutorial game is under judgment right now) were making the exact same games, but with Flash, they would be blatant shovelware according to Sheizenhammer's/your criteria.

More specifically.... mochiads. Those ads that show after a moment where you have to wait for the advertisement to
play then click on "PLAY GAME >" which will likely take you to the games normal loading screen in some cases. That
there, usually tells me it is a shovelware account if it is new and tends to bear "game" or "123" in their name
somewhere.

There are quite a few legitimate accounts that use mochiads, but the vast majority have switched to NG ad revenue. I'd say it's about a 60-80 percent probability, as of now, that a game with mochiads is shovelware.

In my time of seeing shovelware in the last year or two, I have yet to see one give enough of a shit to actually modify
the game after it passed to put ads on their game, much less bother to check their inbox or see what reviews they have
received on their junk.

I would think that most shovelware accounts only exist to submit games, much less swap their files. Most of them probably didn't even know that all of their submissions were deleted last month until they were blocked from submitting more.

And how often they submit. Are they submitting 2 games per day almost everyday, probably shovelware unless it is the
rare chance it is an actual user who just finished up a series of games and couldn't fit them all in one file.

Again, there's that gray area of first-day submissions.

Flagging? Well I hope we can do that soon enough. :P As far as marking things that look like they have been uploaded
before, if it looks familiar it is best to hunt on the site to see if it has been. If the flash has a credits page and shows it
was made in another year by a completely different user then it would be worth getting marked obviously.

Wouldn't these fall under "stolen" instead of "shovelware"?

Agreeable and usually you can tell the difference between a shovelware and legitimate account. The legitimate one
usually says "I made..." somewhere in the description whereas a shovelware account is always seemingly talking in
second or third person. Then legitimate accounts listen to the reviewers, respond to inbox questions and such whereas
a shovelware account never does nor cares what the site thinks of them or if the site wants them gone as they will keep
coming back anyways it appears.

In addition, most shovelware accounts give overblown descriptions that look like they were written by 8 year olds. They also don't say anything about how/why they made the game, whereas legitimate ones talk about themselves and write like they actually care about the game. I have seen a couple of them say things along the lines of "Enjoy, plz vote 5!" to give a shitty attempt at appearing legitimate, though.

Also, I noticed everyone was talking about how to make a flash/guide to explain what is/is not shovelware. He might not have the time, but I think that if Tom could put it in a news post, many more people would see it than otherwise.

At 5/11/12 06:11 PM, SpiffyMasta wrote: There's an important thing that you need to remember here. A lot of the submitters are simply creating new account to work around this. We've caught gamesgrow more than once with multiple accounts submitting.

Of course. That's why I made no mention of accounts anywhere in that post: If you've seen the same base game with only a different skin more than a couple of times, no matter what the game is or how many accounts you've seen it appear on, it's time to make with the PMs to Wade. It's all about judging flashes on their own (lack of) merits, since as you know, blacklisting accounts just doesn't work here.

Must've fell out of your butt crack. Let me sniff it.

*looks at your icon*
*laughs uncontrollably*

At 5/12/12 01:29 AM, Decky wrote:

At 5/11/12 11:30 PM, Spretznaz wrote: Is it possible to stop this guy from making alts short of an ip ban?

I'm pretty sure that once enough evidence has mounded up by him re submitting then Tom or Wade will step in and bitch slap him with an IP ban. Until then we can just keep at it, I like his description, the answer is just keep getting it removed.

Wait a minute, I remember that username....

If it's the same guy as last time, I wouldn't count on an IP ban doing much here. He'll likely get bored and leave of his own accord anyway, though, so meh. Stupid is as stupid does.

At 5/12/12 07:16 PM, Sheizenhammer wrote: Of course. That's why I made no mention of accounts anywhere in that post:

It seems that a week of no internet has left me unable to type coherent sentences. So to clarify: No mention of specific accounts and / or going after people via account names etc.

'Scuse me while I go bang my head on a wall for a while.

At 5/13/12 01:50 PM, SCTE3 wrote: Usually a good idea to give the account a couple of days to see what the user/site uploads and how often they plan to upload content.

Here's a perfectly-timed example of one to watch. The only adverts in it are for the site it came from, but everything else ticks all the generic shovelware boxes.

Don't bang it too much or you'll have a really bad headache.

Meh; I'm numb from work anyway. :P

At 5/13/12 02:51 PM, Sheizenhammer wrote:

At 5/13/12 01:50 PM, SCTE3 wrote: Usually a good idea to give the account a couple of days to see what the user/site uploads and how often they plan to upload content.

Here's a perfectly-timed example of one to watch. The only adverts in it are for the site it came from, but everything else ticks all the generic shovelware boxes.

I don't understand. Is that a shovelware account? I don't think so because shovelware accounts usually just submit games but that account also responds to reviews.

Stolen flash:

• 

  by <deleted>

  Under Judgment

  (Everyone)

I can't find the original, but it has a 2006 copyright by someone with a completely different username. It also has those annoying white spaces.

At 5/13/12 11:15 PM, Gimmick wrote: I don't understand. Is that a shovelware account? I don't think so because shovelware accounts usually just submit games but that account also responds to reviews.

Hmmmm, I doubt that the staff would care if the author responds to reviews or not. The fact that he spends probably the smallest amount of time on here just to respond to reviews says nothing other then he probably uses flash tutorials too much to create something truly generic.

Number 7

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  by <deleted>

  Under Judgment

  (Everyone)

At 5/14/12 11:29 PM, Spretznaz wrote: Number 7
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/595553

Looks like he finally got deleted and ip banned. LOL

At 5/15/12 11:21 AM, SpiffyMasta wrote:

At 5/14/12 11:29 PM, Spretznaz wrote: Number 7

Looks like he finally got deleted and ip banned. LOL

And justice is served in the portal, it seems that the staff are pulling their fingers out more since the redesign to get the portal clean.

• 

  by <deleted>

  Under Judgment

  (Everyone)

I didn't think people were this stupid, but it seems I was wrong. When you open the flash up it says who the original owner of the flash is. If this passes judgement, with the stolen and deletion tags on it then I will seriously wonder.

On another note hi everyone here.

At 5/15/12 07:51 PM, SCTE3 wrote:

At 5/15/12 07:41 PM, LittleWashu wrote: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/595601
I didn't think people were this stupid, but it seems I was wrong. When you open the flash up it says who the original owner of the flash is. If this passes judgement, with the stolen and deletion tags on it then I will seriously wonder.

Really doubt the song they uploaded is their song either.

You could be right. But on another note the stolen flash that was labeled stolen and up for deletion pass the portal. God we need our whistle back because this is just sad. I miss the days when shit like this was marked for review or blammed because it was known to be stolen.

Yet another dress up games raises it's ugly head in The Portal.

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  by <deleted>

  Under Judgment

  (Everyone)

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  by <deleted>

  Under Judgment

  (Everyone)

This last person who submitted this crap has his/her account deleted. Looks like this user made another account to continue spamming this shame crap.

At 5/16/12 01:12 PM, LittleWashu wrote: This last person who submitted this crap has his/her account deleted. Looks like this user made another account to continue spamming this shame crap.

I thought he got IP banned, I'm guessing what I heard wasn't true or he managed to get himself a new computer to work from.

At 5/16/12 01:14 PM, Decky wrote: I thought he got IP banned, I'm guessing what I heard wasn't true or he managed to get himself a new computer to work from.

There's workarounds to that. Although what he submitted isn't technically rule breaking, I'm sure Wade will delete it or something.

This is stolen

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  by <deleted>

  Under Judgment

  (Everyone)

At 5/16/12 01:12 PM, LittleWashu wrote: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/595644
This last person who submitted this crap has his/her account deleted. Looks like this user made another account to continue spamming this shame crap.

I've notified Wade, he took care of it.

Aaaand once again...

• 

  by <deleted>

  Under Judgment

  (Everyone)

And thanks to LittleWashu for pointing me in the direction of this thread. :)

At 5/16/12 03:08 PM, SFS1313 wrote: Aaaand once again...
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/595651

I thought he was IP banned...