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posted by janrinok on Wednesday July 13 2022, @06:32AM   Printer-friendly

After experiencing extensive spamming, ad-hominem attacks, and trolling it became necessary to protect the site by preventing all Anonymous Coward (AC) comments by anyone who was not logged in. This was a reluctant measure but it proved to be 99.9% effective. It was however, far from ideal. It partially isolated many of the responsible ACs who contribute regularly to the site and provide a valuable input to many of our discussions. They are still able to use journals for posting as the editors of SoylentNews have no control over the content of journals or the comments made in them.

I sought an alternative solution and provided access to some of the stories on the front page and marked them as AC Friendly. I had hoped by demonstrating to those abusing the site that there was a simple solution that they would perhaps cease, or at least return to previously manageable levels. Unfortunately this was not to be. The abuse restarted almost immediately and has continued in every AC Friendly story that has been published. It has clearly demonstrated that this isn't a case of the abusers defending free speech or any other laudable and justifiable aim but simply an attempt to prevent the majority of the community from holding any form of discussion at all. I am not continuing the AC Friendly stories on the main page with the sole exception of this Meta story.

I next tried to switch the attempts to include our AC community around by providing stories from the front page initially to my own journal, but subsequently to the journal of a new account named 'AC Friendly'. This was rather labour intensive and was not something that I could continue to do in the long term. These efforts have been ignored and do not seem to be of any interest to the AC community. Likewise I will not continue this effort unless there is evidence that it is wanted.

There are many perfectly understandable reasons for wishing to post comments as an Anonymous Coward. This was recognised when the original Slashdot code was written and provision was made for such individuals in the software. It is a straightforward matter to log in to the site and then automatically post as AC from then on. This both protects the site itself and those using it. If your justification is that you do not trust the staff then I must question why you would want to remain on the site.

Free speech is an essential part of our ethos but it is necessary to realise that free speech and anonymity are not necessarily related. We want people to be able to express their views without fear of harassment, abuse, or unfair moderation. Only by doing so can we truly claim to have free speech. It means that even those with whom we strongly disagree have the right to express their opinions. Subsequent attempts to argue against those views should not involve any form of harassment of the individual making them. Any attempt to prevent someone from expressing their views is directly counter to the very concept of 'free speech'.

Likewise, anonymity is something to be valued. Attempts to unmask either named or anonymous accounts is unacceptable to this site's administration and will not be tolerated. Those who publish information that appears credible to us must be deterred from continuing by whatever means are necessary. We cannot verify every claim made regarding the personal information of a community member and we must therefore assume that it is has some basis in truth and is an attempt at doxing. It does not matter where the information stated in the claim originates or whether it has been stated on this site or elsewhere previously. If it has the potential to unmask a community member it will be treated as doxing. The site will do all it can to protect community members. We are also fortunate that in the 8 years we have been operating we have only had one account that felt it was an acceptable thing to do. That account has been closed.

There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that the toxic environment that has developed on the site has cost us numerous valued community members - both staff and regular contributors of submissions and comments. It cannot be allowed to continue. There is also no doubt that there is a straightforward and simple solution, and that is to prevent AC participation without the creation of an account. The software was designed to do this and it is wasted effort trying to find alternatives when it is unnecessary to do so.

There has been quite a bit of discussion over the last week or so. We have had a former community member (who was also once a member of staff) return to the site with his own story. Initially he chose to remain anonymous but subsequently decided to continue his comments under his username. I encourage you all to read the link given and the subsequent comments given in reply. I am very grateful that has taken the effort to explain why he has did what he has done and I welcome him back to our community if he choses to stay. As part of my reply to him I made the following statement:

It is vitally important that everyone is able to express their own point of view without harassment or intimidation or even unfair moderation. We do not all agree with each other. That is the same in any community. But by full, frank and honest discussion we can at least understand each others point of view and possibly identify potential solutions. The freedom of expression is still essential on the site - but it can only exist if we can ensure that it can be conducted in a suitable environment.

I stand by that statement. Since that comment was published I have received other views and experiences of the toxicity of our site from a significant number of individuals, including regular community members and both current and former staff. Quite simply, if we do not change then in all likelihood we will not survive much longer. It is not too late to make the necessary changes but time is running out.

I promised you that no changes would be made to how the site operates without first giving you all the chance to express your own opinions. But you have to decide now which path you want the site to follow. This cannot be a simple vote - as an extreme example we have no way of verifying that AC comments are not the result of a single person, or if some sock-puppets are still active on the site. Everyone has the right to be heard. However, let me point out a few rules:

  • Any attempt to disrupt this Meta by spamming, ad-hominem attacks or trolling abuse will count as someone expressing an opinion that we should insist on accounts for all those wishing to post as AC. If anyone thinks that by abusing the site they will be helping their case they are mistaken. However, such actions will clearly show to the community that those who have been making the most noise about being prevented from expressing themselves are not actually fighting for free speech, but rather they are determined to prevent you from exercising your right to it.
  • It will be pointless to keep repeating the same views as an AC. We cannot separate them. You want to be anonymous, you choose to have the account ID #1, and this, unfortunately, is a direct consequence to that decision.
  • All views will be collated and then a decision will be made based upon them by the staff. This will include the SN Board who may accept that decision, but who have the right to choose the path that the site eventually takes. It may not be the decision that any of us want.

This is an important issue. It cannot be a simple vote but I encourage as many people as possible to express their opinions. It might be the last chance for you to do so. The Meta will stay active for several days to at least mid-week - but if it is abused excessively then it will be taken down and we will be forced to make a decision base on whatever views we already have or can get from elsewhere. I will endeavour to move the Meta in the story queue so that it remains on the front page. Many of our community log on at different times of the day or only on specific days. I would like to give everyone a chance to see the Meta story and to make their views known.

This is your opportunity - please do not waste it.

[Ed's Comment: See bold text - warning 2022-07-10 12:36 UTC]

 
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  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 09 2022, @11:45AM (20 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 09 2022, @11:45AM (#1259077)

    Tell us, aristarchus, does the end justify the means?

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   -1  
       Offtopic=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Offtopic' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   -1  
  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 09 2022, @12:20PM (19 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 09 2022, @12:20PM (#1259087)

    No, but sometimes, the means fit the end. Look it up. If I was aristarchus.

    • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 09 2022, @12:29PM (18 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 09 2022, @12:29PM (#1259089)

      Your means do fit the end of helping to destroy SN, and to make everyone miserable in the process. If you were aristarchus.

      • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 09 2022, @12:43PM (17 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 09 2022, @12:43PM (#1259092)

        Due to excessive bad posting from this IP or Subnet, anonymous comment posting has temporarily been disabled. You can still login to post. However, if bad posting continues from your IP or Subnet that privilege could be revoked as well. If it's you, consider this a chance to sit in the timeout corner or login and improve your posting. If it's someone else, this is a chance to hunt them down. If you think this is unfair, please email admin@soylentnews.org with your MD5'd IPID and SubnetID, which are "2455a1fac082342dce30cb3473217e37" and "ab775e9002ccf25a4c8ac828aae8f4a6".

        And would not SoylentNews, the basiion of free speech on the Internet, deserve to be destroyed, for the banning of aristarchus? Let us be clear about what is at stake here.

        sorry about all the attempted censorship at the head. Had to change IP outputs three times. Just to avoid SoylentNews Censorship. Bad Sn, bad. And, average Soylentil, if you were permabanned, for no good reason, what would you do?

        • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 09 2022, @12:55PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 09 2022, @12:55PM (#1259097)

          And would not SoylentNews, the basiion of free speech on the Internet, deserve to be destroyed, for the banning of aristarchus?

          No!

        • (Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 09 2022, @01:22PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 09 2022, @01:22PM (#1259108)

          And would not SoylentNews, the basiion of free speech on the Internet, deserve to be destroyed, for the banning of aristarchus?

          The aristarchus that I kindly asked to stay on S/N is dead.
          His slow death started with his compulsion of mocking the "enemy" and he deceased at the moment he had nothing else to produce but invective against his perceived enemies.
          After that moment, only the undead zombie of his persona still continued to haunt S/N with nothing else but stench.

          Let us be clear about what is at stake here.

          Nothing is at stake here, you're deluded if you think S/N has any consequence in this world.

          Just to avoid SoylentNews Censorship

          And? What's your point?

          And, average Soylentil, if you were permabanned, for no good reason, what would you do?

          Move on to something that actually matters. Not like you CV is gonna ever mention your involvement in S/N.
          And, maybe stop feeling righteous in general.

        • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Sulla on Sunday July 10 2022, @10:06PM (13 children)

          by Sulla (5173) on Sunday July 10 2022, @10:06PM (#1259595) Journal

          It is not necessary for Soylentnews to be the bastion of free speech. I personally would prefer it if it were, but its clearly not a viable model when you have barbarians at the gates. If you want freeze peach then go to 4Chan and you can have it.

          The concern with all regulations where something is a judgment call, is how do those in control define it. As we have seen for years now, we can't agree what the meaning of repetitive or off-topic are, how can we agree what spam is?

          Sometimes purges and proscriptions are needed for a free republic to survive. The editors which I feel both sides of the political spectrum of posters tend to trust should do their best and we should support them, rather than argue for Hannibal to be a Senator.

          --
          Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
          • (Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 11 2022, @06:32AM (5 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 11 2022, @06:32AM (#1259674)

            This is, of course, what destroyed the Roman Res Publica, much as such advice from a rebel and pro-business Republican will destroy SoylentNews.

            signed,
            Marius

            • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Sulla on Monday July 11 2022, @04:09PM (2 children)

              by Sulla (5173) on Monday July 11 2022, @04:09PM (#1259813) Journal

              I set in place standards that would prevent men of ability from climbing the ranks too fast and taking a run for dictator, or in your case posting endless spam. The death of the Republic was at the hands of the most able Roman ever born, a man who was a supporter of Marius and I neglected to eliminate. That man was Julius Caesar, and the only thing that could stop a man as able as himself was hubris, he neglected to heed the warnings Jove sent to his wife in a dream.

              Your purges removed half of the able senators who could have held the Republic together, and my proscriptions removed the rest in order to restore balance. I could not have expected a man such as Caesar to rise. Better than Pompe in tactics, Cicero in rhetoric, and more wise than Cato.

              Aristarchus is no Caesar

              --
              Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
              • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 11 2022, @05:39PM (1 child)

                by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday July 11 2022, @05:39PM (#1259842)

                Caesar knew: to accumulate personal wealth and power, one must distribute both liberally.

                --
                🌻🌻 [google.com]
                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 11 2022, @06:13PM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 11 2022, @06:13PM (#1259846)

                  Bah, liberals.

            • (Score: 1) by Sulla on Monday July 11 2022, @04:11PM (1 child)

              by Sulla (5173) on Monday July 11 2022, @04:11PM (#1259814) Journal

              Also to my point, why would someone bother moderating this as disagree? I gave it an underrated mod to negate. Empty words stand for themselves, and need not be moderated. If it was thought to be spam it should have been moderated as such, and not disagree

              --
              Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
              • (Score: 2, Disagree) by FatPhil on Wednesday July 13 2022, @10:21AM

                by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday July 13 2022, @10:21AM (#1260448) Homepage
                Underrated does not "negate" a disagree mod, you numpty.
                I'm sure whoever modded it disagree didn't think it was spam, and therefore your final sentence is equally irrelevant.
                Whoever modded it disagree probably disagreed with it, nothing more, nothing less, and if so disagree was the ultimate in correct modereration choice.
                --
                Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 11 2022, @05:35PM (6 children)

            by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday July 11 2022, @05:35PM (#1259840)

            !!! Warning Offtopic Warning!!!

            >both sides of the political spectrum of posters tend to trust

            Why do people attempt to reduce politics to a one dimensional value?

            Semi-quoting from Interstellar: "What's your waist size? And your inseam? So, it takes two numbers to measure your ass, but only one number to define my child's future?"

            While some politicians are, indeed and in capability, one dimensional, or less, most of them have varying positions on a number of essentially orthogonal issues. Yes, even Ron DeSantis is more than just 99% Trump, he has little nuances here and there to alternately love and hate.

            And in the voting public, while there are those who only look at R or D on the ballot to make their decisions, many voters, perhaps even a majority, do actually consider the candidates attributes beyond their party affiliation - and this is far from a one-dimensional landscape.

            If we stop talking, and acting, like one dimensional simpletons, it's conceivable that one day we might start removing the one dimensional simpletons from political power.

            /rant

            --
            🌻🌻 [google.com]
            • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 11 2022, @06:15PM (4 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 11 2022, @06:15PM (#1259847)

              True, but it does all compress down to a boolean scalar in the end.

              • (Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 13 2022, @01:35AM (3 children)

                by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday July 13 2022, @01:35AM (#1260357)

                Most choose not to decide, but they still have made a choice.

                --
                🌻🌻 [google.com]
                • (Score: 2, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday July 13 2022, @01:09PM (1 child)

                  by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday July 13 2022, @01:09PM (#1260487) Journal

                  Wow. Couldn't you use that in the lyrics of a song or something? lol

                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 14 2022, @03:02AM

                    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 14 2022, @03:02AM (#1260697)

                    Yeah, in "Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?" by John Sebastian.

                • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 14 2022, @02:59AM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 14 2022, @02:59AM (#1260696)

                  Don't it always seem to go
                  That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?
                  They paved paradise
                  Put up a parking lot

                  - Big Yellow Taxi Joni Mitchell

            • (Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Wednesday July 13 2022, @10:38AM

              by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday July 13 2022, @10:38AM (#1260450) Homepage
              The problem's not just one-dimentionality, it's being binary. I could put up with a continuity on one dimension, but the vast majority are so intent on distancing themselves from the other end that they just fling themselves at the endpoints, no matter if cranial damage occurs when so doing. In reality, the typical 2d political compass should map most people who aren't nutjobs into a kind of croissant shape, which is nearly a horseshoe, which is nearly a line, and thus for all intents and purposes can be approximated as one dimentional. So the 1d-ness wasn't the intrinsic problem, as long as you understand that that 1d manifold is embedded in a 2-or-more-dementianal space.

              Alas, the typical 2d political compass has some oversights in its scoring which fail to modify one axis because they think the answer only affects the other axis. This lets some people end up with absurd coordinates which are logically impossible. For example, all absolute statements about how an economy should be run are *definitionally* authoritarian, because without authoritarianism you can't achieve your economic goals, as others will prefer to not go along with them. The bottom left and bottom right corners are *impossible*.
              --
              Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
        • (Score: 2) by Nobuddy on Thursday July 14 2022, @03:53PM

          by Nobuddy (1626) on Thursday July 14 2022, @03:53PM (#1260839)

          "for no good reason"

          gonna express doubt, based on your post here. You need to grasp the simple concept: My house, my rules.

          If you don't like the house rules, go elsewhere. You don't try to find an open window to enter so you can break the rules again.