An accusation has been made that a Journal Entry made by a member of the community was deleted.
tl;dr No "smoking gun" has been found so far and no conclusion has been made one way or another. The investigation will continue. I have the next two days (Wed. and Thurs.) off from work and intend to dig further into this, then.
When I first learned of this, I immediately started looking around as I found the accusation to be credible and, if true, unacceptable behavior.
Nothing I found that morning could corroborate the claim. I posted my findings and promised that when I got home from work that I would look into it. And I did exactly that spending several hours looking for data through both the UI tools presented within the site and with ad hoc queries to our DB. I dumped sections of tables of interest and brought them local to my home machine for later investigation.
Of course, as life has a way of doing, I was also in the midst of a crunch period at work and my spare time has been scarce of late (e.g. I had a training class to attend that was over 100 miles away and worked the entire Labor Day weekend). Further, we have two editors who are on a leave of absence and another who is on vacation, leaving a greater burden on the remaining editors to keep stories coming to the community. This has been exacerbated by the Labor Day holiday weekend in the US meaning fewer substantial stories get posted to the web at this time. In a nutshell that left fewer editors having to work even harder to find stories that could be brought to the community.
Do remember, also, that we had a rare site outage a couple weeks ago which necessitated restoring the site DB from backups. This was a manual process. There have been a few hiccups since then that were attributed to an unclean shutdown/restart as well as needing to restart various services besides just the database: the web server, load balancer caches (nginx), slashd (a cron-like daemon which periodically starts still other background processes and services), and ... you get the idea.
Still, in what little free time I had, I continued to look for information that could corroborate or refute the accusation.
It bears mentioning that there may well be no "smoking gun". But whether there is or is not, I firmly believe the community nonetheless deserves an investigation. It is a very different thing to toss one's hands up in the air and not even look as opposed to look deeply and diligently and find nothing.
I have decades' experience testing computer software on a wide range of platforms. I have worked at startups and fortune-100 blue chip companies. I once was brought in to a company to test a compiler when my only prior experience was a single college course. Another place I worked at had an automated test harness written in a language in which my only prior experience was it being one of 4 languages covered in a language-survey course in college. Within a week I had started refactoring the code base and by the time I left 9 months later, had removed and/or isolated hardware-based dependencies and rewritten the test harness to run in parallel. A full test run across several different hardware platforms and OS versions, which used to take 8-9 hours, now completed in just 1 hour. These are meant only to illustrate that I have no difficulties digging into things in which I had limited or no prior experience. When SoylentNews implemented Unicode character support using UTF-8 (Unicode Transfer Format - 8bit), I searched for the relevant RFCs (Request For Comment, aka Internet "standards"). One led to another and that to others and when I was done had found about a half-dozen of those. Further, there were different versions of the Unicode standard published by the Unicode Consortium, so I dug into those, as well. Needing test data, I wrote tools to extract/generate all the NCEs (Named Character Entities) as well as both hex- and decimal- numeric character entities. Oh, and then there was the matter of IDNs (Internationalized Domain Names; like "foo.com" but "foo" could be in any Unicode supported language!) These then were used in all user-facing, text-entry fields that I could discover and the results were reviewed. I am pleased to say that in the subsequent 5 years' time, I am aware of only two bugs that got through.
(Anecdote time. During the Slashcott, I got wind of some "alternate Slashdot" being developed, but could find no announcement of where it was. I did a bunch of searches. They came up empty. Tried a bunch more. No joy. Then I found what looked to be a bug report for this new site with a screen capture of the main page. And, it had this really strange URL in the address bar. Some domain name like "li42-123.com". Strange! But, I tried it and found it was just what I was looking for. Not knowing who was behind this or how to contact them, I was a bit nervous. Still, after enduring several formkey errors that day and into the next morning, I was finally able to create new account. I then kept a low profile until SoylentNews went live. And that, my friends, is how I got a coveted two-digit UID.)
I present the forgoing not to brag, but to give examples of the diligence and thoroughness that I am bringing to this investigation.
Further, I have somehow become the spokesperson for site-related "stuff" be it an annual summary of where we are at, announcements of server outages due to our hosting provider, Linode, providing updated hardware, different virtual hosting software, bug patches for Meltdown and Spectre, etc. When I have made mistakes I have owned them openly and on the front page no less. I cannot persuade you to believe me, and feel free to believe as you wish, but I can only trust that my integrity in all my actions on this site speak more forcefully and firmly than any words I may bring you in support of it.
My investigation is not complete, but given the amount of time that has passed, I felt it important to give an interim summary of what was planned and any results found so far.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 03 2019, @06:04PM (3 children)
Seems like a lot of text for explaining a single missing journal entry. Glad you're on the case, digital detective.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 03 2019, @06:52PM (1 child)
The Russians did it. Or alternatively... Just blame it on Trump like everyone else does. Or or alternatively again... Windows 10 did an update. Or or or alternatively again... You here holding the Apple mouse wrong.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Tuesday September 03 2019, @08:02PM
The intended purpose of journal entries is for you to preview walls of text for you to use for other purposes. Not posting is a feature and worked as designed
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Wednesday September 04 2019, @07:45AM
The significant thing is that the claim was that the journal entry was deleted intentionally by a member of staff. That is something that we take very seriously.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jelizondo on Tuesday September 03 2019, @06:08PM (12 children)
I really appreciate the effort you and the other editors make everyday to keep the site going.
And double thanks to you martyb for spending additional effort to clear what could have been a mistake by a community member (i.e. did not press submit or pressed delete by accident)
(Score: 5, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday September 03 2019, @06:23PM (11 children)
Or an outright bug. There were at least two more reports of missing journal entries over the next several days but nothing I could find in any of the logs to even begin to troubleshoot things.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Sulla on Tuesday September 03 2019, @06:39PM (3 children)
While I think it is more likely that AK made a mistake and simply did not submit their journal, I think there is the possibility of a bug. Going through my old journals it *feels* like the oldest one I have listed was not the oldest one I did. Sadly I do not have any evidence of this other than a feeling.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 4, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday September 03 2019, @09:14PM
Never underestimate my ability to code a bug.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 04 2019, @04:43AM
Yeah, I don't remember that being your first one either. I vaguely recall something else being before that because I was going to dismiss that post as a straight shill until I saw it. But that could also have just been a comment.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday September 04 2019, @08:17AM
I'm pretty sure my oldest two journals are correct. I don't see comments on them but I don't remember if they had any.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by black6host on Tuesday September 03 2019, @08:18PM (1 child)
I once ran across one of the hardest bugs to find I'd ever seen. Somehow, purely by chance, I noticed that a customer record (the main one to which all transactions were related) had simply disappeared. I had just inherited the code base from someone else who had developed most of it and there were a lot of problems with it. Notably forced integrity was non-existent and as the databases were dBase type there was no forced integrity at the engine level. Not just gone, but replaced with a new customers data. I won't go into too much detail but no pack had been done and had a delete occurred it should have been a soft delete that could have been detected.
I had no idea how data could be replaced in such a way and we tried and tried to duplicate it. Turns out that quite a few steps had to be taken in a particular order and then some function key pressed that nobody had ever even considered and was assigned to some benign task. If those things were done in the right order then poof! Instead of a new customer record being written an old record was overwritten. Took me a while to find the cause, and fix. I thought I was losing my mind but I compared backups and could see that the original record had at one time existed and could then pinpoint when it was overwritten. That helped in the debugging process. I bet records had been deleted for quite a while before I chanced upon it.
So yeah, shit can be hard to find... :) And, I assume you've checked the backups...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday September 03 2019, @09:11PM
Backups are daily, missing journals were of the "post and poof" variety, so no help there. So, assuming it wasn't a "hit preview instead of save" issue, I'd expect to see an error in Apache's error_log (MySQL errors get returned to the script and dumped to the log as well). Except there's nothing there at the times they were posted and nothing involving journals recently at all.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 03 2019, @09:34PM (3 children)
As AC, on 2 different occasions, I have posted comments to some other article discussion and submitted "successfully"... except that my comment didn't appear anywhere after that!
Upon re-attempting to submit, it told me that comment had already been posted.
I am certsinly betting on "bug", the simplest and least hare-brained of all theories.
(Score: 3, Informative) by HiThere on Tuesday September 03 2019, @09:59PM
I _*MAY*_ have had something similar happen WRT replies to a post. I was never really sure whether or not it was an ID10T error. So I'd consider a bug a real possibility, but hardly bet that way, unless you count GUI design issues.
OTOH, since there was an "unexpected downtime" in the period of time under study... well, that's also a reasonable source for the problem. A bit hard to check, though.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday September 04 2019, @03:24AM
I've had this happen too, but if I then return to the original page and reload, there's my comment after all. I've seen this error on many different sites, and have pulled the conclusion out of my ass that it's a timeout, probably during page regeneration, that doesn't get passed all the way down the line.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 04 2019, @04:47AM
I think they added a bug in the posting system. If you look at your address bar after posting, you'll notice some HTML entities in it. I don't remember those being there but I only noticed them within the past few weeks. My guess is that one of those query parameters isn't getting interpreted correctly after submitting, so you have to wait for the cache to pick up your new comment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 04 2019, @04:56AM
I'm not sure what recovery steps you all went through, but I'd give a hard thought about restarting the machines and triggering an fsck on reboot. You can then bring up the system from your known baseline and once up, run a package and configuration verification against known goods or hashes. Since there is a chance that something somewhere got corrupted in just the right way or that you didn't come up quite clean or that you've gotten some memory-resident worm or something, on top of the odd behavior you noted, that could be the best choice to try and lock it down.
(Score: 3, Informative) by nobu_the_bard on Tuesday September 03 2019, @06:24PM
I've had to do similar work before, though I suspect I was not as good at it.
I have no ball in this game, but I appreciate the report all the same, interesting to read, thank you.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by SemperOSS on Tuesday September 03 2019, @07:04PM (12 children)
I too would like to thank martyb and the other Soylent News colleagues for going well beyond the call of duty to try to solve this mysterious case to assure the community that nothing underhanded has taken place. In my opinion, this is testament to an unusual and excellent integrity reflecting the spirit of this site.
Well done all!
I don't need a signature to draw attention to myself.
Maybe I should add a sarcasm warning now and again?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by EJ on Tuesday September 03 2019, @07:26PM (11 children)
That's assuming this entire thing isn't some sort of fake-news gaslighting to inspire trust in martyb.
I'm not saying it is, but if it was, this is what it would look like.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Tuesday September 03 2019, @07:39PM (5 children)
At some point, you have to trust someone. Either that, or you'll end up a paranoid hermit. Like you see on criminal minds, or some other crime show.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 5, Funny) by EJ on Tuesday September 03 2019, @07:45PM (1 child)
That's exactly what They want you to believe.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Chocolate on Tuesday September 03 2019, @11:11PM
The truth is out there.
The lies are inside your head.
Bit-choco-coin anyone?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 03 2019, @07:48PM (2 children)
Trust no one and yeet ourselves forever.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday September 03 2019, @08:04PM (1 child)
Yeah, I don't take advice from people who use the "word" "yeet". Sure, there may be exceptions to that rule, but it's a really good rule.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Funny) by EJ on Tuesday September 03 2019, @08:09PM
Whenever I'm in doubt, I ask myself if it sounds like something I might do. If it does, then I don't trust it at all.
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday September 03 2019, @09:16PM (3 children)
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Wednesday September 04 2019, @02:21PM (2 children)
[Citation Needed]
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday September 04 2019, @03:54PM (1 child)
[Citation] [goodreads.com]
And don't go blowing my perfectly good Bytram's a Supervillain theory by denying it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Funny) by martyb on Thursday September 05 2019, @01:11AM
Oh come on now! Who would fall for such a ruse? I mean really! What kind of a Joker do you think I am?
=)
Getting back on topic... I find it hard to explain, but doing QA/test for me, is like exploring a multi-dimensional maze trying to find hidden treasures (bugs). Less shoot-em-up video game and more like the classic Colossal Cave text adventure game. I have a heuristic of actions and expected outputs based on past efforts... and a finely-honed "spidey sense" of when things are not exactly what I expected. That said, I have as yet nothing new to report. More and more it is looking like a simple software bug. Remember in the early days how SoylentNews used to crash several times each day? I find it a testament to all the hard work that was put into the site that the possibility that it could simply be a bug in the code was so far from people's minds!
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday September 04 2019, @07:52AM
But you probably won't stay here if you don't trust us, and rather than lose our community, we would prefer to make every effort to try and identify exactly what did happen.
The lack of conclusive evidence so far is frustrating for everyone, not just the person whose journal entry didn't appear as expected.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Gaaark on Tuesday September 03 2019, @07:48PM
"I have the next two days (Wed. and Thurs.) off from work and intend to dig further into this, then."
Tomorrow, I pay you time and a half.... Let's see...nothing into nothing, carry the nothing...
How about a pat on the back and a hug from my son (don't worry...he's like Keanu Reeves)
D.e.d.I.c.a.t.I.o.n.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 03 2019, @07:50PM (3 children)
jan deleted journals trashing systemd, isn't it? might as well fess up now.
(Score: 1) by Acabatag on Wednesday September 04 2019, @01:20AM
Maybe systemd itself deleted the journal entry.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Wednesday September 04 2019, @03:50AM
Actually, systemd's (or more specifically journald, which is not a part of the systemd init) log signing feature could come in handy in this kind of situation, if there's any possibility that someone could have tampered with the logs. Traditional logs and the syslog protocol are trivially easy to forge.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday September 04 2019, @08:05AM
Made me laugh too - now just watch your comment silently disappear over the coming weeks :) (Thats a JOKE for those that don't understand!)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Tuesday September 03 2019, @07:55PM (24 children)
I think I lost some comments during that shuffle. Not a big deal, but that did take out stuff during the period between the backup and the restoration of course.
And what exactly prevents the person in question from reposting?
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday September 03 2019, @08:08PM (23 children)
Nothing, other than apathy, outrage, and a sense of being picked on, I guess. Also, theoretically, the person in question, decided to give up on SoylentNews. So, it all may be a moot point as far as they're concerned. Still good to know, that it's not something they just decided to brush under the rug.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2, Disagree) by barbara hudson on Wednesday September 04 2019, @02:41AM (22 children)
Buggering off makes me think that they realized that it was probably an error on their part and were not willing to own it or suggest the possibility.
I wouldn't lose too much sleep over it. After all, if it's not important to them ...
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 04 2019, @04:22PM (17 children)
"Real coders don't need either GUIs or automatic memory management. Delphi is dead" by BarbaraHudson (3785311) July 12, 2019
Delphi/FreePascal != "automatic memmgt", does TRUE 'stand-alone' .exe & MULTIPLATFORM (smartphones/BSD/Linux/Windows/MacOS) GUI + services, tty term etc. & Object Pascal since TIOBE INDEX inception 2001 NEVER OUT of TOP 20 https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/ [tiobe.com]
So - 'Real coder' show work you do registered /.ers like/use (they do mine & I've proof - you don't) https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14501806&cid=59037984 [slashdot.org] https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14501806&cid=59038002 [slashdot.org] https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14501806&cid=59038016 [slashdot.org] https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14501806&cid=59038034 [slashdot.org] https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14501806&cid=59038042 [slashdot.org]
You're all BLOWHARD 'talk' & ERRONEOUS as hell talk too (see above vs. your bs) - barbarahudson's "hotairware"/"notthereware" lol!
(Prove otherwise - I've asked THAT of you many times https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14448786&cid=58998430 [slashdot.org] & YOU "Run, Forrest: RUN!!!" ya bullshitter weirdo!)
"I am better than you & smarter" by BarbaraHudson September 04, 2017
You don't prove it!
"I should do my part to make the world a safer place" by BarbaraHudson (3785311) July 29, 2019
I do, you don't & registered /.ers use/like my work that does so https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14382950&cid=58945680 [slashdot.org]
"you're just lazy. Or incompetent. Or both." by BarbaraHudson August 21, 2017
You're BOTH - see next below, lol!
---
DUMBASS tried to say THIS stops null-terminated string buffer overflows https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14350406&cid=58924180 [slashdot.org] lol - WRONG (segmented macro asm code jmp type stuff from 16-bit that hasn't mattered in decades)
BarbaraHudson = WRONG on C vs. Pascal https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14351188&cid=58921060 [slashdot.org] SPEED & SECURITY (vs. null terminated C string buffer overflows) advantage https://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14365360&cid=58932312 [slashdot.org] (C++ = same too & w/ STL = safe BUT 5x slower - you CAN'T WIN, loser). IF you use char array pointers OR array positions to do hardcoded pascal strings your C/C++ string lib functions (designed to work w/ dangerous null-terminated strings) will fail too & again you can't win https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14365286&cid=58932238 [slashdot.org]
MICROSOFT KNOWS Memory bugs in C and C++ code cause security issues so Microsoft is considering alternatives https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/07/18/microsoft_argues_for_memorysafe_languages_hints_at_move_from_c_to_rust/ [theregister.co.uk] & PASCAL COVERS THIS IN STRINGWORK per the above!
WRONG on Delphi/Linux https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14357208&cid=58929022 [slashdot.org]
WRONG on String types/size DELPHI has for API etc. https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14357208&cid=58942910 [slashdot.org]
("3++ STRIKES - 'yer out'")
---
"women aren't suited for tech "because estrogen"? by BarbaraHudson (3785311) July 17, 2019
No just you: YOU bear a child from your CORRUPT body MISTER & prove me wrong ON THAT & points in my links above - you can't. Pass a chromosonal test as a REAL female - good luck that!
Slicing off your balls DOESN'T MAKE YOU A REAL WOMAN DELUDED freak - you're a MAN on ESTROGEN CHEMICALLY CASTRATING ITSELF!
(Trying to twist FACT I state on YOU onto REAL women? Not even "nice try")
---
"APK, the failed man-child who claims to be self-employed" by BarbaraHudson (3785311) July 18, 2019
I own a business for 12++ yrs. (1994-2007 as a professional programmer-analyst/software-engineer & retired from working for others running a business since late 2007 onward)
YOU FAILED AS A MAN by CHEMICALLY NEUTERING yourself.
---
Leftist AntiTRUMP REJECTS = bottom of the barrel:
Arstechnica's Peter Bright child molester ADMITS "he's in a sexual relationship with an 11-year-old" https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2019/06/09/feds-leftist-tech-reporter-peter-bright-arrested-for-soliciting-child-sex-online/ [breitbart.com]
HIS RAP SHEET https://www.docdroid.net/UMNWMSx/bright.pdf#page=4 [docdroid.net] (disgusting) LITTLE BOYS "SUCKING HIS SNAKE" etc. - et al NO BAIL GRANTED (FBI agents/judges felt he's dangerous to kids).
"I'm a leftist" barbarahudson https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14391394&cid=58948616 [slashdot.org]
YEA: A leftist that "ain't RIGHT" (on TONS of levels).
---
"being able to drive you nuts" by BarbaraHudson (3785311) July 26, 2019
YOU CUT OFF YOUR NUTS & CALL ME NUTS?
(LMAO - that's a laugh!)
---
* Barb said I started it?:
"You’re the one who started it" by BarbaraHudson (3785311) July 13, 2019
"trolling the hosts file guy in one easy step The next time you see a post by him, just reply anonymously." by tomhudson (43916) March 31, 2011
YOU started up again w/ ME 1st recently IMMEDIATELY on your return to /. https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14311560&cid=58890562 [slashdot.org]
"You either don't know what you're talking about, or you're intentionally lying" by BarbaraHudson September 03, 2017
No - that's ALL YOU, projecting as usual & you prove it FOR ME: See ALL above.
APK
P.S.=> DISMANTLING a "TraNsTeSticLe": Eat yer words
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday September 04 2019, @11:49PM (1 child)
Not a problem - I'll leave heve until such time as they come up with a solution ...
However, I DO reserve the right to file a complaint with the police at some future date. Won't be the first time US police have gone after one of my online stalkers ... and that one went very well.
Another wanna-be Delphi programmer who never got a job in the industry, harrassed me online for over a decade, and ended up with their employer having the police do a forensics on all the computers in the department, then firing the asshole.
I was feeling generous at the time, so when they asked me if I wanted to press charges, I said no.
Now I'm older and less willing to overlook such crap.
I have things to take care of over the upcoming months, but I'll probably come after you legally late next year. Remember, I know how the statute of limitations works, and the laws you've broken - and this time I will love to see you squirm.
In the meantime, shitpost all you want - I'm gone, same as I left slashdot for several years. Turns out that D1 works in Links (though D2 doesn't), but it also turns out that I have other assholes I have to go after through the courts first. Enjoy your pitiful life.
The day before slashdot banned anonymous comments, I told you that your bullshit was probably going to turn me into a trans rights activist. Between you and my opthalmologist, who after 7 years continuously misgendered me to a medical student, I've made my decision.
Filed a complaint with the hospital ombudsman, and let them know that this will be settled through the courts. Like I said, older, wiser, no longer willing to suffer fools gladly. And unlike the last two cases, a donation to charity and a published apology won't be enough. I've learned that the only way to get the message through is to hurt them where it counts - the bank account.
In your case, since you don't work, I'll have to settle for criminal charges instead of civil ...
And yes, I'm a leftist. I'm voting Green again next election. And I think having a President who has dementia is just demented. Fortunately in Canada we'd have forced someone like him out really really quickly. Same as we have 1/16 the death rate from firearms per capita (it would be even lower if it weren't for all the guns illegally smuggled in from the US by truckers wanting to make extra money).
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 05 2019, @05:34PM
Hahahahaha. Truth of your mistakes vs. APK now exposed hurts doesn't it? Yes. Embarassing for you obviously. Since you can't prove him wrong but he did you easily dummy. Quite a reaction from you but no matter what crap you spew you blew it on C and C++ buffer overflows that Pascal has no such issue with on stringwork. Especially your bs on calling conventions that have zero to do with C (and even C++ slower STL) buffer overflows in strings. You're a wannabe. A talker. A liar also as APK is a successful doer with verifiable concrete proof of his work's efficacy in speed, security and added anonymity. Spout all the lies you want but you lose no matter what projecting you stalked APK by unidentifiable anonymous posts caught in the act quoted doing so trying to say he started it when it was you. You did all that to yourself transtesticle monster freak loon you clearly are. You can't stand there is no overlooking how you blew it you bs artist weirdo.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Thursday September 05 2019, @12:09AM (10 children)
As they say here, "seche, tabernak!"
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday September 05 2019, @03:55AM (8 children)
Don't even sweat it. Folks around here can take care of spammers with no admin intervention necessary by using the Spam mod. With admin powers we can make it even more annoying for them to try.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 05 2019, @05:53PM
STFU you pisspot fool! He's still posting exposing what a blunderer and big talker but no action loser loon barbarahudson is and yes, barbarahudson STALKED APK admittedly (if a chimp like you can read, proof of it is at the end of that post you TRY TO HIDE like the punk you are, lol) and barbarahudson blew it on C/C++ buffer overflows in strings Pascal has no such issue with, you stupid cunt. barbarahudson who always TALKS about code but has none to show for "it"self. All that information in tech is probably above your dull dimwit head but it makes us all laugh how he is running rings around you and can repost that anytime he likes and there is nothing you can do about it you pitiful moron hahahahahaha. He'll keep coming and barbarahudson has it coming. Public humiliation. Hence "it" (barbara/tomhudson) running asking "it's" account be deleted (hilarious). The embarassment of being a big talk no action fuckup did "it" in along with stalking apk proven by barbarahudson/tomhudson (same tranny loon) quoted and easily verified on slashdot no less. You have no power over him you pitiful little tin-plated dictator. Accept it. You lose too. All YOUR KIND does, always.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 13 2019, @02:48PM (6 children)
Unfortunately, I've also seen comments modded as spam that I don't think should be. Here are a couple of examples:
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?cid=889468&sid=33440 [soylentnews.org]
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?cid=889469&sid=33441 [soylentnews.org]
Make no mistake, these comments I've linked to are trolls/flamebait, but they don't satisfy your definition of spam. From your moderation guidelines:
It's laudable that you have measures in place to combat spam, but at least in some cases, it's applied to comments that don't seem to satisfy the definition. Those are trollish comments, which belong at -1, but the spam mod seems inappropriate. They're saying that the stories aren't important and that users would rather moderate the comments into oblivion than explain the significance of the story. If I understand the spam mod, it's intended to prevent crapfloods and actual commercial spam, rather than to curtail actual trolling/flamebait, which is what those comments look like. I'm not defending the comments at all, to be clear, just saying that they don't seem to qualify as spam.
I wouldn't have said anything, but it sounds like the spam mod has a different effect than a troll mod, even for anonymous comments. As for the original poster, he uses a lot of predictable phrases in his comments that aren't normally used. It should be pretty simple to add a few of those phrases to the lameness filter and reduce his abuse. It would also be interesting to see a filter implemented that would use natural language processing to automatically distinguish spam from non-spam comments, much like the automated email junk filters. I'm surprised that hasn't been implemented yet, either here or on Slashdot.
Your lameness filter, as implemented, is pretty heavy handed and ineffective. I had no idea that the default subject when I pressed the reply button would prevent me from posting the comment, and the filter text was unhelpful. I'm posting in good faith, which makes it frustrating to me. Filtering based on the subject isn't effective. It's one of the first ways Slashdot tried to block spam like the OP, and he easily found a way around it.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 13 2019, @04:02PM (5 children)
When you post the same comment to multiple stories or to multiple places in the same story, they're spam. See the origin of the term [youtube.com] if you don't get why.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 13 2019, @07:26PM (4 children)
Thank you for your reply. While I don't agree that the spam mods satisfy the criteria in the moderation guidelines, I appreciate you taking the time to reply to me. I also understand that you and the other admins make the rules and I respect that. Obviously I have zero issues with the spam in this thread being modded as, well, spam.
Regarding the lameness filter, I did encounter some false positives while drafting up my comment. Maybe I used a certain three letters too often in my comment, though I'm not 100% certain what tripped the filter. As someone who does a bit of development for Android, those three letters have a completely different meaning in that context. If that's what tripped the filter, it might make it difficult to have some legitimate on-topic technical discussions. Do with the feedback as you wish, but I think it's worth letting you know. By the way, the original version of this comment also tripped the filter... just to let you know.
Thank you for being responsive to user concerns. I wish Slashdot admins were more active in the discussions like they were when the site was initially sold to BizX. Even if I disagree with the admins, the discussions are better when admins take the time to interact with users.
One other question... Slashdot used to do book reviews and user-submitted features. Does SoylentNews do anything like that? I have an idea for a feature about a topic that's been discussed in the comments here in the past. If user-submitted features would be considered for posting, I would consider submitting one.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 13 2019, @07:54PM (2 children)
I dunno about the other admins but I'm generally down to discuss most anything.
Re: user submitted features and reviews, yeah, just send them in like any other submission. If they need discussed beforehand, hop over on IRC (there's a link on the left side of most pages) or email us [mailto].
Re: the lameness filter, what specific error message are you getting? We're really not running but a few filters, so catching one accidentally is either something of an accomplishment or I need to take martyb to remedial regex school.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 13 2019, @08:45PM (1 child)
Thank you again for replying; much appreciated!
The error I received was: "Filter error: Please take your trolling someplace else." I have a pretty good idea of why you've implemented the filter and I'd respect if you feel it needs to remain as-is.
I'm a meteorologist. I work in research and I'm not employed by NOAA. I wanted to write something about the forecasting of Dorian, discuss some of the technical details about forecasting (in a way that should be accessible to the audience here), and address the issues surrounding the forecast in a way that doesn't push a political view. Before I submit it, I'll send you an email so that, should you deem it worthy of being posted, it's attributed to my real name and that it's done in a way that couldn't get my in trouble with my employer. It'll take me 2-3 days to draft something up and since features would be considered for posting and not automatically rejected, I'll definitely submit it.
Thanks for your help!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 13 2019, @11:15PM
Yep, that's martyb not being specific enough in his regexes. I'll forward the problem to him.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday September 14 2019, @09:32AM
Yes, we have a topic on 'Reviews' dedicated to just such things, and there is a book review group which choose authors and books to read and then get together here to discuss them. Not my own cup of tea, but if I remember correctly, takyon [soylentnews.org] can point you in the right direction.
Your submissions would be welcome as long as they are relevant to this community.
You'll appreciate that it is hard to give you any direct advice because you are AC, but that doesn't affect how we look at submissions.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 05 2019, @05:41PM
Hahahahaha. Truth of your mistakes vs. APK now exposed hurts doesn't it? Yes. Embarassing for you obviously. Since you can't prove him wrong but he did you easily dummy. Quite a reaction from you but no matter what crap you spew you blew it on C and C++ buffer overflows that Pascal has no such issue with on stringwork. Especially your bs on calling conventions that have zero to do with C (and even C++ slower STL) buffer overflows in strings. You're a wannabe. A talker. A liar also as APK is a successful doer with verifiable concrete proof of his work's efficacy in speed, security and added anonymity. Spout all the lies you want but you lose no matter what projecting you stalked APK by unidentifiable anonymous posts caught in the act quoted doing so trying to say he started it when it was you. You did all that to yourself transtesticle monster freak loon you clearly are. You can't stand there is no overlooking how you blew it you bs artist weirdo!
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday September 05 2019, @02:03PM (3 children)
What is this stuff? It's the second time I've seen stuff like this, and it isn't getting any clearer.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday September 05 2019, @02:05PM
We need to be able to mod something "gibberish".
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 07 2019, @09:40PM (1 child)
Sorry, it's just my personal troll who claims that I'm the one stalking him, but who, now that slashdot banned anonymous posts, has followed me here to continue stalking.
Alexander Peter Kowalski is a failed shareware developer who was booted off arstechnica in 2000 for spamming his Hosts File crap at $25. a pop.
He has spent 20 years spamming all over the place, trying to build up his "APK Hosts File" brand, but forgot to create a web site or anything else devoted to it, and his "brand" was taken over by apkeditorpro.us, who have a web site and free downloads in google play for their APK Hosts file editor. I pointed this out after one of his attacks, he went nuts, slashdot banned anonymous posts.
So I'm posting anonymously (something I never do) to make it harder for him to track me. But after 10 years of this, 100 or more times a day, he's obviously a nutcase. If he were local, I'd get a protection order against him. Since he won't be allowed over the border unless there's a screwup somewhere, I have less to worry about.
You'll see he often posts pretending to be other anonymous supporters backing him up. Everyone is now used to this.
When I was off slashdot for several years recently because I couldn't read (retinal disease), he kept accusing other people of being me posting through sock puppet accounts, or attacking him anonymously.
You might want to check out this discussion from ars back in 2000 - gives you an idea of just how sick this guy is. where he pleads not to be banned after spamming [arstechnica.com]. It's a real hoot. Or it would be, if it weren't so sad to know that he's been like this for decades.
He's made conflicting claims about being self-employed, but there's no evidence that he owns a business. No business registration, no business presence on the net, no mandatory government filings.
Just another sad case of someone who had an idea in the late 90s that he thought could get him rich without having to actually work, and is so psychologically invested in it that he cannot walk away, and attacks anyone who dares to tell him his "Hosts File Engine" can be replaced with a one-liner bash script cat-ing all the individual host files, piping the output through sort, piping that through uniq and putting the output into one big file.
Similarly, a one-liner to ftp the resulting file to a distribution site, and an at command for a cron job to do the whole thing once a day. Similarly, a bash script to get the latest host files from other sites, in another cron job.
He's not at all happy that I pointed out that he can be replaced by a few scripts. Then again, he's Windows-only.
That's one thing I've noticed - your operating system really has a huge impact on how you approach problems.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 12 2019, @08:01PM
Liar he has a Linux version of his program you stupid blowhard. Apk only tried to stop a fight at arstechnica. He won in the end annihilating arstechnica. You blew it from the start vs. APK barbarahudson you hypocrite loser posing anonymous yourself but you have an account you lying trash! You blew it the worst here https://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14365604&cid=58932640 [slashdot.org] you stupid delusional freak (you're not a real woman psycho mentalcase, you can never be). Apk's done more than a twisted SICKO lazy welfare leeching "TrAnStEsTicLe" MONSTER in you ever will. He has real skills and proved you are nothing but a bullshit liar.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 04 2019, @06:42PM (2 children)
"Real coders don't need either GUIs or automatic memory management. Delphi is dead" by BarbaraHudson (3785311) July 12, 2019
Delphi/FreePascal != "automatic memmgt", does TRUE 'stand-alone' .exe & MULTIPLATFORM (smartphones/BSD/Linux/Windows/MacOS) GUI + services, tty term etc. & Object Pascal since TIOBE INDEX inception 2001 NEVER OUT of TOP 20 https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/ [tiobe.com]
So - 'Real coder' show work you do registered /.ers like/use (they do mine & I've proof - you don't) https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14501806&cid=59037984 [slashdot.org] https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14501806&cid=59038002 [slashdot.org] https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14501806&cid=59038016 [slashdot.org] https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14501806&cid=59038034 [slashdot.org] https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14501806&cid=59038042 [slashdot.org]
You're all BLOWHARD 'talk' & ERRONEOUS as hell talk too (see above vs. your bs) - barbarahudson's "hotairware"/"notthereware" lol!
(Prove otherwise - I've asked THAT of you many times https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14448786&cid=58998430 [slashdot.org] & YOU "Run, Forrest: RUN!!!" ya bullshitter weirdo!)
"I am better than you & smarter" by BarbaraHudson September 04, 2017
You don't prove it!
"I should do my part to make the world a safer place" by BarbaraHudson (3785311) July 29, 2019
I do, you don't & registered /.ers use/like my work that does so https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14382950&cid=58945680 [slashdot.org]
"you're just lazy. Or incompetent. Or both." by BarbaraHudson August 21, 2017
You're BOTH - see next below, lol!
---
DUMBASS tried to say THIS stops null-terminated string buffer overflows https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14350406&cid=58924180 [slashdot.org] lol - WRONG (segmented macro asm code jmp type stuff from 16-bit that hasn't mattered in decades)
BarbaraHudson = WRONG on C vs. Pascal https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14351188&cid=58921060 [slashdot.org] SPEED & SECURITY (vs. null terminated C string buffer overflows) advantage https://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14365360&cid=58932312 [slashdot.org] (C++ = same too & w/ STL = safe BUT 5x slower - you CAN'T WIN, loser). IF you use char array pointers OR array positions to do hardcoded pascal strings your C/C++ string lib functions (designed to work w/ dangerous null-terminated strings) will fail too & again you can't win https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14365286&cid=58932238 [slashdot.org]
MICROSOFT KNOWS Memory bugs in C and C++ code cause security issues so Microsoft is considering alternatives https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/07/18/microsoft_argues_for_memorysafe_languages_hints_at_move_from_c_to_rust/ [theregister.co.uk] & PASCAL COVERS THIS IN STRINGWORK per the above!
WRONG on Delphi/Linux https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14357208&cid=58929022 [slashdot.org]
WRONG on String types/size DELPHI has for API etc. https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14357208&cid=58942910 [slashdot.org]
("3++ STRIKES - 'yer out'")
---
"women aren't suited for tech "because estrogen"? by BarbaraHudson (3785311) July 17, 2019
No just you: YOU bear a child from your CORRUPT body MISTER & prove me wrong ON THAT & points in my links above - you can't. Pass a chromosonal test as a REAL female - good luck that!
Slicing off your balls DOESN'T MAKE YOU A REAL WOMAN DELUDED freak - you're a MAN on ESTROGEN CHEMICALLY CASTRATING ITSELF!
(Trying to twist FACT I state on YOU onto REAL women? Not even "nice try")
---
"APK, the failed man-child who claims to be self-employed" by BarbaraHudson (3785311) July 18, 2019
I own a business for 12++ yrs. (1994-2007 as a professional programmer-analyst/software-engineer & retired from working for others running a business since late 2007 onward)
YOU FAILED AS A MAN by CHEMICALLY NEUTERING yourself.
---
Leftist AntiTRUMP REJECTS = bottom of the barrel:
Arstechnica's Peter Bright child molester ADMITS "he's in a sexual relationship with an 11-year-old" https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2019/06/09/feds-leftist-tech-reporter-peter-bright-arrested-for-soliciting-child-sex-online/ [breitbart.com]
HIS RAP SHEET https://www.docdroid.net/UMNWMSx/bright.pdf#page=4 [docdroid.net] (disgusting) LITTLE BOYS "SUCKING HIS SNAKE" etc. - et al NO BAIL GRANTED (FBI agents/judges felt he's dangerous to kids).
"I'm a leftist" barbarahudson https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14391394&cid=58948616 [slashdot.org]
YEA: A leftist that "ain't RIGHT" (on TONS of levels).
---
"being able to drive you nuts" by BarbaraHudson (3785311) July 26, 2019
YOU CUT OFF YOUR NUTS & CALL ME NUTS?
(LMAO - that's a laugh!)
---
* Barb said I started it?:
"You’re the one who started it" by BarbaraHudson (3785311) July 13, 2019
"trolling the hosts file guy in one easy step The next time you see a post by him, just reply anonymously." by tomhudson (43916) March 31, 2011
YOU started up again w/ ME 1st recently IMMEDIATELY on your return to /. https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14311560&cid=58890562 [slashdot.org]
"You either don't know what you're talking about, or you're intentionally lying" by BarbaraHudson September 03, 2017
No - that's ALL YOU, projecting as usual & you prove it FOR ME: See ALL above.
APK
P.S.=> DISMANTLING a "TraNsTeSticLe": Eat yer words
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday September 05 2019, @03:53AM (1 child)
Do not bring your bullshit vendettas into our comment section, asshat. They're spam and will be marked as such. Which means ordinary old users can burn the IP you're using seconds after you've posted one spam comment.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 05 2019, @05:47PM
STFU you pisspot fool! He's still posting exposing what a blunderer and big talker but no action loser loon barbarahudson is and yes, barbarahudson STALKED APK admittedly (if a chimp like you can read, proof of it is at the end of that post you TRY TO HIDE like the punk you are, lol) and barbarahudson blew it on C/C++ buffer overflows in strings Pascal has no such issue with, you stupid cunt. barbarahudson who always TALKS about code but has none to show for "it"self. All that information in tech is probably above your dull dimwit head but it makes us all laugh how he is running rings around you and can repost that anytime he likes and there is nothing you can do about it you pitiful moron hahahahahaha.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 05 2019, @11:07PM
BoooOOOOrrrrp hahahahaha no matter WHAT you do or lies you say, you have to RUN fucker from https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=33430&page=1&cid=889582#commentwrap [soylentnews.org] and your fuckups and lies there you crackpot ABNORMAL MONSTER heinous aberration that you KNOW you are tranny!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday September 03 2019, @08:46PM
You forgot the element where y'all are working your butts off on this as volunteers. (Not that your modesty would allow for that. :) )
Hopefully we won't forget to say Thank You for all your work and dedication. And support the site as we can.
And thanks for the update, as well, something else you didn't have to do but felt it was right.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 03 2019, @08:49PM (2 children)
Is there some kind of post-hash which is created when a comment or submission or journal entry is created?
You could put the post-hash in the dive somewhere, hidden or not with css, or just have a post/hash log which can be referred back to.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday September 04 2019, @08:03AM (1 child)
That are a whole host of things that take place. Journal entries each have their own ID, comments have their own ID, submissions have their own ID, users have an ID etc Your question above has the ID #889289. They all go into the database and they are interlinked so that each comment is associated with its journal or story, and each journal and story with its User ID etc. Other information goes into various logs. Cross-checking them all takes a lot of time, especially if you don't know for certain which ID you are looking for.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 04 2019, @11:04PM
cells within cells ..
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 04 2019, @01:28AM (2 children)
We need stability and proven code - it's time to switch to WordPress!
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday September 04 2019, @03:29AM
Wordpress is why I have a junk email addy that includes the string, "wordpress won't let me post." Wordpress delenda est.
Here's to Soylent Code, wobbles and all!
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Funny) by janrinok on Wednesday September 04 2019, @08:07AM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Knowledge Troll on Wednesday September 04 2019, @03:12PM
I have encountered a journal post i submitted once then was lost in the system and it wasn't a particularly contentious one so I assumed something went wrong. This was perhaps 2 years ago so you might be looking into a long running issue here.
Do you have point in time recovery enabled on your database backups? You could look through each transaction to find where any modifications to the journals may have been made.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Wednesday September 04 2019, @06:54PM
I appreciate the effort going into this investigation, especially if it is an obscure bug.
I've had postings (not journal entries, since I have not, to date, posted journal entries) 'go missing', but it is far more likely that I misremembered, and actually pressed 'Preview', rather than 'Submit', and flipped to another tab in my Web-browser without checking.
I hope it is a bug, and nobody has been doing things they probably shouldn't, and failing that, that it is a user perception error.
I am happy to admit I am fallible. Many people are not so happy to make such an admission.