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posted by on Thursday September 03 2020, @08:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the silver-linings dept.

The Mighty Buzzard writes:

Congrats to the wannabe APK noobtard for advancing the site's codebase despite me having extremely limited time to play. I added three lines of code and now Spam modded comments (and comment trees) auto-collapse and you can still moderate a comment as Spam even if it's already at the minimum score. Honestly, the folks using any other downmod on obvious Spam annoy me more than the noobtard does but that annoyance at least is now history. Changes are to hot code only, I'll put them in the repo as part of my next pull request.

Suck it, noob. --TMB

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 04 2020, @03:31PM (15 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 04 2020, @03:31PM (#1046346)

    The logic here doesn't make sense.

    I don't agree with barbara hudson about banning AC posting. I work in the public sector and frequently criticize my employer's COVID-19 decisions and their management on other matters. If I had to create an account, I'd probably be less willing to post here. That said, SN needs to be transparent about what information is tracked and just how long hashed IPIDs are kept around. The IPv4 address space is small enough that it's not that hard to brute force who posted what comments. AC is better than pseudonymity but I'm starting to distrust just how much I can trust AC posts will be kept anonymous.

    That said, Slashdot handled the GNAA crapfloods very differently. TMB noted that a vast number of mod points are assigned each day. But only a small portion of those accounts are actually moderating. If editors like him are trusted to review spam mods and be the ultimate arbiter of whether the mods are applied correctly, there's no reason why those editors can't just mark all the spam comments as spam. Slashdot editors were criticized for not being transparent about the use of unlimited mod points, but the actual use of those mod points on GNAA crapfloods was not particularly controversial.

    I fail to see why it would be a problem for the editors to use unlimited mod points to assign spam mods, but otherwise have the same limits on moderation as other users. That means they wouldn't have unlimited troll or flamebait mods but would have unlimited spam mods and could clean up the messes. One argument I've seen for not policing moderation is the editors couldn't agree among themselves about which comments are good and which aren't. That shouldn't be an issue for removing spam. After all, the spam mods are supposed to be used only in situations where it isn't controversial and the comments clearly and obviously have no value. If the editors trust themselves to agree on reviewing spam mods, then the editors should be able to trust themselves to agree on handing out those mods to begin with. Using unlimited spam mods during crapfloods would be useful and shouldn't be controversial. I don't understand why this option isn't on the table.

    It's not hard to find ways around the lameness filters so this would be a very useful line of defense rather than saying it's the community's job. Perhaps the community should go on strike, so to speak, and just let the spam stay sometime. I respect the editors and even subscribe but it doesn't mean I have to agree with every decision.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 04 2020, @05:57PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 04 2020, @05:57PM (#1046424)

    That said, SN needs to be transparent about what information is tracked and just how long hashed IPIDs are kept around.

    https://soylentnews.org/faq.pl#aacpaa [soylentnews.org]

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 04 2020, @07:15PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 04 2020, @07:15PM (#1046459)

      If that hash is deleted after about two weeks, I feel better about actually being anonymous. I remember CmdrTaco justifying AC posts on Slashdot saying that it's sometimes necessary to be able to say things anonymously, even if it allows trolls to abuse the feature.

      Where I work, I get the feeling a lot of faculty are frustrated with how the administration is handling the COVID-19 situation. As someone who is junior/temporary faculty, I'm reluctant to speak up too much because, despite being protected by the first amendment, it's still possible for people to make my life difficult. I'm pretty sure I'm far from the only person who feels this way. It's not quite as severe as the University of Alabama saying they would punish faculty who told students about COVID-19 cases in their classes, but I still feel pressure to not speak up too much. We haven't been threatened to not tell students about positive tests but the administration has a policy of not telling faculty if anyone in their class tests positive, provided that masks were worn and seats were spaced six feet apart in the classroom. It's frustrating and I think people deserve to know what's going on -- there's not anywhere close to enough transparency from the administration. So there's definitely value for me to being able to vent about it as an AC here.

  • (Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Friday September 04 2020, @06:02PM (6 children)

    by RandomFactor (3682) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 04 2020, @06:02PM (#1046425) Journal

    to be used only in situations where it isn't controversial and the comments clearly and obviously have no value.

    "Donald Trump is GREAT! Possibly the best president ever!" is not controversial to something like 200 Million people in the USA.
     
    100 Million agree strongly with it.
    100 Million consider the statement vicious, inciteful, and clearly and obviously without value.
    100 million just want the 200 million above to STFU.
     
    There would need to be a check/balance to ensure the determinations made were more generally acceptable and not a reflection of personal animus.
    .
    .
    .

    (yes yes - all numbers vague and imprecise and obviously much more weighted towards the reader's particular view of reality, but the point remains)

    --
    В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 04 2020, @08:16PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 04 2020, @08:16PM (#1046513)

      My take on your example is that it's something that would be inflammatory. Unless the poster tried to support that statement, it's obviously flamebait or trolling. But if it's on-topic and relevant in any way to the thread or the article, it's not spam. However inane, it's plausible that people could reply and eventually produce a useful discussion, even if the initial post is a low effort troll. I think the difference is that APK's repeated posts are, well, repeated and are also extremely unlikely to produce a useful on-topic discussion. If APK posted his drivel in a thread where he had previously been having a heated argument with Azuma Hazuki and posted it just once, the post would be flamebait and batshit crazy but not spam. But when he's starting thread after thread with that, it really isn't controversial at all to call it spam. Perhaps editors should only use unlimited spam mods for repetitive posts, because that really is unambiguous -- and that's the one place where unlimited mod points would be useful.

    • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday September 06 2020, @03:08PM (4 children)

      by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Sunday September 06 2020, @03:08PM (#1047177) Journal

      And you need to bear in mind that this ISN'T an American site. It is manned by volunteers from around the world. The common link is that it is an English language site. Many of us don't give a damn what Trump says or doesn't say but we still have several months of US 'politics' being discussed daily.

      It is currently hosted in the USA because that allows us to register it as a specific type of site and gives us several protections that aren't available in every other country. But make no mistake, the servers could be located anywhere if there was a good enough reason to justify it. Currently there isn't.

      • (Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Sunday September 06 2020, @04:22PM (3 children)

        by RandomFactor (3682) Subscriber Badge on Sunday September 06 2020, @04:22PM (#1047202) Journal

        So if the line of excessive annoyance is crossed (Fidonet reference if anyone cares), the red lights flash hot and the copper comes calling, the site sort of yawns and gets a new hoster? Or maybe even entire TLD?
         
        If so, I vote for: SoylentNews.ni (News that goes ni!)

        --
        В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
        • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday September 07 2020, @07:18AM (1 child)

          by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 07 2020, @07:18AM (#1047479) Journal

          Why change to TLD? .com, .org, .net etc are used all over the world. Theyt might be managed by the USA but they are not solely a US asset. I am a European and have 3 sites, all hosted outside the USA, and all with a TLD (.org/.net) without a national identifier.

          But if US law changes and demands, for example, a private feed of all the data we process or information on all of our subscribers we can move the site relatively easily to somewhere less restrictive.

          • (Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Monday September 07 2020, @02:16PM

            by RandomFactor (3682) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 07 2020, @02:16PM (#1047567) Journal

            Ni.

            --
            В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday September 07 2020, @12:39PM

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday September 07 2020, @12:39PM (#1047546) Homepage Journal

          If we ever do change domains, I'm sold.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday September 05 2020, @04:13PM (5 children)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Saturday September 05 2020, @04:13PM (#1046808) Homepage Journal

    I fail to see why it would be a problem for the editors to use unlimited mod points to assign spam mods...

    Because we actively want as little beyond-user power as necessary to do our jobs. Power you don't have can't be abused. And while anyone with direct database access technically has all the power we could possibly want, we still like to make it as annoying as possible on ourselves to abuse that power.

    Also, there aren't a whole lot of us and we're entirely volunteer, so we don't hang out reading every comment or even every article all day long. It's much more effective to get everyone helping out.

    That said, SN needs to be transparent about what information is tracked and just how long hashed IPIDs are kept around.

    IP hashes are supposed to be kept for two weeks and then discarded. That said, it's possible it hangs around in the db in out of the way places that we haven't found yet for longer. We do want it gone if that's the case though and I will absolutely look next time I have the time to scour every table in the db.

    That and credit card transaction records (Not the name and number and such, that's handled by the processors and we never see it. We only get the neutered transaction info the processor sends us.) are the only remotely personal information we collect though, since we don't even require email addresses to be valid. Who (what user account) posted what is of course tracked in perpetuity or all comments/submissions would necessarily have to be AC but who has what user account is pretty much as anonymous as it's possible for us to make it.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @03:38PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 10 2020, @03:38PM (#1049015)

      "...so we don't hang out reading every comment or even every article all day long."

      Abundantly available evidence plainly supports a contrary conclusion.

      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 11 2020, @02:50PM (3 children)

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Friday September 11 2020, @02:50PM (#1049515) Homepage Journal

        You get that if your ass actually makes an account and logs in, you get these notifications when someone replies to you? Not instant, annoying notifications like you might on a cell phone but unobtrusive, patient notifications that will sit and wait until any time you happen to have a few minutes to sit on your ass and pwn noobs.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 11 2020, @10:04PM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 11 2020, @10:04PM (#1049685)

          Q.E.D.

          • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday September 14 2020, @11:52PM (1 child)

            by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday September 14 2020, @11:52PM (#1051036) Homepage Journal

            Missing something very important there. You only get notifications when someone replies directly to you or on your journal. That's a long, long way from deciding to sit and watch every comment as it hits the DB.

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 14 2020, @11:59PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 14 2020, @11:59PM (#1051040)

              obs=n++