| 1 |
On 01/17/17 12:41, Michał Górny wrote: |
| 2 |
> On Sun, 15 Jan 2017 23:56:30 -0500 |
| 3 |
> Dean Stephens <desultory@g.o> wrote: |
| 4 |
> |
| 5 |
>> On 01/15/17 14:23, Michał Górny wrote: |
| 6 |
>>> |
| 7 |
>>> What do you think? |
| 8 |
>>> |
| 9 |
>> I think this proposal is utterly unworkable in practice. While the |
| 10 |
>> intention is rather obvious, and heavily geared toward actual |
| 11 |
>> contributing members of the community at large, the proposed |
| 12 |
>> definitional scope and structure are incompatible with actual workloads |
| 13 |
>> already in place. |
| 14 |
>> |
| 15 |
>> To provide some perspective to those unfamiliar with the actual volumes |
| 16 |
>> in consideration here, just on the forums there are typically several |
| 17 |
>> "users" manually banned per day for posting spam, and perhaps a dozen or |
| 18 |
>> two profiles manually banned because the profiles themselves were spam, |
| 19 |
>> in addition to that there are typically hundreds (in some cases |
| 20 |
>> thousands) of accounts which are effectively automatically banned due to |
| 21 |
>> their spam content or at the very least matching reported user profiles |
| 22 |
>> on Stop Forum Spam[1]. Opening a Council bug for each of these would be |
| 23 |
>> an insurmountable workload if done manually, and at the very least a |
| 24 |
>> ludicrous volume of completely pointless mail to all Council members; |
| 25 |
>> but it is *exactly* what would be required by this proposal. |
| 26 |
> |
| 27 |
> It sounds like you have a major technical problem and you do not even |
| 28 |
> attempt to solve it. There are many ways of attempting to divert bots, |
| 29 |
> and I don't think we should really be using inability to handle spam as |
| 30 |
> excuse not to report your actions. |
| 31 |
> |
| 32 |
It is alright to admit that you are ignorant of a subject, even healthy |
| 33 |
to do so. Ignorance is curable. Immediately assuming that others are at |
| 34 |
best incompetent is, to put it gently, socially suboptimal. |
| 35 |
|
| 36 |
In case it was somehow unclear to you "effectively automatically banned" |
| 37 |
in reference to an automated system that automatically blocks, |
| 38 |
effectively banning, those accounts is in place and functioning right |
| 39 |
now. The information for those particular accounts is kept around to |
| 40 |
document profiles of active spammers and to make remediation trivial in |
| 41 |
case of a false positive. |
| 42 |
|
| 43 |
As for other bans being issued regularly, you do realize that any spam |
| 44 |
bot worth using would do things like let one or more humans solve |
| 45 |
CAPTCHAs, right? And that several classes of CAPTCHA are presently |
| 46 |
easier for fully automated bots than for humans? Further, you do realize |
| 47 |
that blocking bots would still, by your proposal, explicitly be a |
| 48 |
reportable disciplinary action, right? |
| 49 |
|
| 50 |
Ask questions and you might find enlightenment, make accusations and you |
| 51 |
will tend to find yourself being ever more ignored. |
| 52 |
|
| 53 |
> Of course, regarding multiple replies received, it would probably just |
| 54 |
> be reasonable to generate simple periodical reports instead. |
| 55 |
> |
| 56 |
The vast majority of which would still be pointless noise, and which |
| 57 |
would do nothing to mitigate the burden placed on the Council as an |
| 58 |
appeals body not just for actions, but also for actions not taken. |
| 59 |
Stuffing something into a report does not magically make it useful, |
| 60 |
relevant, or less time consuming. |
Archives