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from the See-dick-mod.-See-dick-sock-mod.-See-dick-get-banned.-Don't-be-a-dick dept.
Labor Day:
In observance of Labor Day (a federal holiday in the United States celebrated on the first Monday in September) I am hereby inviting the SoylentNews editorial staff to enjoy a three-day weekend — Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Stories will be scheduled and released on a weekend-story-spacing schedule. The holiday marks the unofficial end of summer and it often marked by parades, sales, cookouts, and the like.
These volunteers give selflessly of their spare time to try and make sure we keep the stories coming. Please join me in thanking them for their generous sacrifice of spare time and experience to keep those stories coming!
Tor:
(short for The Onion Router) is in the process of rolling out an updated protocol. ThIs update is NOT compatible with prior versions. SoylentNews has had support from the early days of the site (thanks to NCommander, IIRC). As nobody on staff has experience in this area, our support will cease at any time - the TOR site is saying October. It was laudable at the time. Unfortunately, its more recent use seems to have been primarily by spammers. As such, we could lose access to Tor at anytime as our network "neighbors" either upgrade or find themselves no longer "adjacent" to back-level versions like ours is. You can still access this site using TOR with our normal URL.
Sock Mods
We have been methodically identifying and shutting down sockpuppet accounts. These are NOT allowed. Attempts to bypass the will of the community by controlling multiple accounts is forbidden. One user, one account. Do NOT use another account (or accounts) to upmod one-or-more accounts that you control. If you do not like getting downmods, take a look at the comments you post. Sure, occasionally, someone might mis-moderate a comment by accident (heck, *I* have done it!) In our experience, such errors are generally rare and are frequently followed at some point by others, offsetting moderations.
So: "Sock mods" are being tracked. We are methodically investigating cases. Accounts are being disabled, and never in isolation. It takes agreement by at least two admins, and usually more, for any action to be taken.
If you are generally a positive contributor to the site, such impacts to your karma are usually just "line noise" in the grand scheme of things.
Mod bombs:
In a similar vein, if you disagree with someone, do not attempt to silence them by using multiple accounts to mod their comments down.
We have seen cases of both "mod bombs" and "sock mods". We have held back on taking action until we are certain. Any action taken is first confirmed by at least one other staff member. Complaining about moderation is OFF TOPIC and tends to get moderated as such.
Limits
We've previously tried to set concrete limits. "Give them an inch and they'll take a mile." I have personally witnessed cases where one account downmodded another account 4 times in one day. For ten days in a row! That was just enough to avoid getting moderations reversed, but certainly enough to show a concerted effort to moderate the commenter rather than just the comment.
This will no longer be tolerated.
Admins can see who has moderated whom. We talk among ourselves. We discuss cases that come up. It's pretty simple, really: "Don't be a jerk!"
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 05 2021, @05:17PM (6 children)
In the year 1999, you went to a site, clicked "register", filled in basic info, and then you had an account. No CAPTCHAs. No e-mail verification in most cases. Absolutely no "phone verification". No fake error messages based on your IP address/"reputation score". No underhanded "oh, wait, you cannot have the account after all" messages after you've already registered. No evil "shadowbans"/bubbles. No photo IDs had to be scanned in and sent to the owners of the site. Nothing like that whatsoever. Those days are long gone...
In 2021, I painstakingly filled out the massive registration form for fetster.com, probably the only non-fake (or so I thought) dating site in existence which doesn't make you pay money for nothing. The account was created, and I was logged in, but after literal seconds, after three page loads (no exaggeration), I was suddenly, inexplicably logged out again. Upon trying to enter the credentials, I just got a "no such account" error message. It's seriously scary how broken and useless websites have become. Do note that I already proved to not be a bot by solving their ridiculous CAPTCHA. Also, why auto-ban somebody after they already let you through the registration form? Insanity.
In 2021, my Twitch browser profile suddenly showed that I was logged out from Twitch for the first time. Upon attempting to re-login using the correct username and password, it harassed me about them having sent a new "security code" to the e-mail address I used when registering the account, because they are mentally ill and passwords clearly no longer mean anything. Luckily, I actually had it written down still and miracoulously still had access to it. But no e-mail was ever received. It just never arrived. So I pressed "resend e-mail". Waited for ages. Nothing. They literally lie about sending the damn e-mail. No, it is not in "the spam folder". As a result, I could never again log in to the account; I was in practice permanently locked out. Rug pulled under my feet, with nothing to do but delete my account details and forget about that entire service, and their API which I used for various things that I had invested a ton of time and effort into. Cannot renew the key which expires every month. "Bye-bye." It's the same story, over and over...
Whenever I try to register a Tutanota e-mail account using Tor: "Registration is temporarily blocked for your IP address to avoid abuse. Please try again later or use a different internet connection."
More and more companies/services are starting to force this vile, idiotic concept of "two-factor authentication", as always using "security" as a bullshit excuse to track you and prevent any kind of privacy. It actually does nothing but remove security and puts you at far worse risk, and its actual purpose is for them to get your surveillance unit number, be able to lock anyone who values their privacy out, and force you to not only own a surveillance unit in the first place (yeah, you try buying a "burner phone/SIM card" anonymously these days...) but also to constantly keep it around and ready just to be able to log in. Having the actual password to "your" account means nothing anymore in this new world of absolute stupidity and constant lies.
The entire point of reCAPTCHA is to verify that you are human, right? Well, think again! This nonsense is what I now sometimes get instead of the "human challenge": "Your computer or network may be sending automated queries. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now. For more details visit our help page"... Amazing.
After hearing about this new "Facebook killer" in 2021 called MeWe (what an idiotic name...), I registered an accou... no... wait... nevermind: "We're sorry, something seems to have gone wrong. Please try again soon." (It of course didn't matter how many times I "tried again".)
Seemingly every other webpage load these days simply says "Access denied" followed by either "This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks." or "You don't have permission to access XYZ on this server."
When logging into GitHub one day (2019), after discovering that my issues all returned "404 Not found" errors, and after being forced to enter a code sent via e-mail: "Your account has been flagged. Because of that, your profile is hidden from the public." When you see that message, nobody will ever hear or see you on that site ever again...
Upon visiting a US newspaper's website in 2021, I got this insulting message in large letters on a "lockout screen": "Our European visitors are important to us." Underneath, in smaller print, it said: "This site is currently unavailable to visitors from the European Economic Area while we work to ensure your data is protected in accordance with applicable EU laws." I'm so incredibly important to them that they will not even show me their garbage, ad-infested "content"...
I asked a series of questions on a GitHub project's "issues" section (prior to Microsoft buying it) and noticed that they were suddenly gone on all computers except my own, I was suddenly logged out, and I was unable to log in again with what I now realize was a fake error message. After weeks of experimenting, it eventually dawned upon me that a GitHub employee was the maintainer of the project/repository in question, and that he kept using some secret feature which underhandedly "stealth bans" anyone he didn't like. (I was not even being rude.)
None of the above is exaggerated or made up. In fact, if anything, it's toned down...
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Mockingbird on Sunday September 05 2021, @06:57PM (2 children)
How about, instead of all the Iron Fist stuff, we just add a +5 Righteous mod?
(Score: 2) by sgleysti on Sunday September 05 2021, @08:13PM (1 child)
Some user keeps posting variants of that text on slashdot. They're very persistent, and I admire that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 06 2021, @09:10AM
And some backbirth mods the parent comment -1 Offtopic. All we AC's fart in your general direction.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Sunday September 05 2021, @09:24PM (1 child)
Are you sure you're not using the public WiFi of The Most Heinous Organization On Earth, or some sketchy VPN, or something? This much persecution targeted at one random individual who has done nothing to deserve it strains credulity.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 05 2021, @11:54PM
It's mostly TOR. I've had some of this happen while using someone else's WIFI or even a private VPN, but TOR is where the shenanigans get to ridiculous levels.
I can't speak for the GitHub issue, but I've definitely seen the registration problems on sites. You can follow all the steps, solve all the CAPTCHAs, get the confirmation code via text message, press the final button to register and... suddenly a 404 or 403 error.
On one site it did actually create the account even after the 404. However, it was only usable after logging in from a non-TOR connection. An attempt at making a second account failed about 15 times. It's a 50/50 shot whether they'll send you the SMS or the CAPTCHA will give you the middle finger. No matter what road block you hit the final result is a probably a 404 or 403.
Sometimes a site will tell you registration is complete but then tell you "the username or password is incorrect" when you go to sign in. Then registering an account will let you use the username you JUST registered was still available. Silently lying to you and wasting all your time.
At least this site allows TOR and even goes the extra step to have the onion site available. It'd be a shame to lose that accessibility.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 06 2021, @10:55AM
It sounds like you're holding your Internet wrong. Try turning yourself off and back on again.