Comments vs. Spam
There had been a spate of spam comments on c.p.o lately. As a temporary measure, I've turn off automatic comment approval, but that leaves me having to approve comments for long-time users, and slows down the experience for all of you.
So, improved strategy. A new role, "verified user", is now allowed to post comments without approval. You can become a verified user by choosing the "My account" link and the "apply for role table". I'll verify anyone who I can reasonably assure myself is an actual MUSHer and has been around the site for a while.
Of course, you don't have to get verified; you can still post comments and they'll just take a little longer to appear.
Click 
Verified Users
Just a thought. Have you considered setting a period of time, say one year, and making every user who's been registered for longer than that a verified user? That cut down the number of individual cases you'll need to deal with to new(ish) users, and any spammer who registered a year or more back to conduct a spamming attack a year later possibly deserves a little success simply for effort. :)
Thanks, but it's okay.
It's not as much work as you think. :) I did verify most of the users who I either know or who made legitimate past posts, and I only find myself having to verify new folks (like you!) every few weeks or so.
UTO and my TinyCause
See here.
Google and the FCC are paving the way for the gradual erosion of Net Neutrality. This process begins with the first willingness to compromise, and does not end until the job is done.
I was once a vice-president in charge of anti-bureaucratization. Interestingly, and incidentally, I never voluntarily relinquished my commitment to that responsibility - to find those places where institutionalization is creeping in.
So, today, again... I cry out "Horseshit!" at the top of my lungs... for several reasons, two of which I list here...
* Because I'm still crying out "Horseshit!" over issues which haven't yet died, but which I feel obligated to expose-to-death as part of my responsibility, and...
* Because another issue is creeping it's way in, RIGHT HERE...
So, here it is...
This is the right technical solution, but the WRONG bureacratic implementation.
The technical solution is correct (users can self-approve their own posts).
The bureaucratic implementation is wrong - this self-approval privelege should be a default permission (perhaps delayed by a 24 hour waiting period?), affording the site administrator the privilege to restrict it.
Javelin, I propose that your implementation is the first step toward 'erosion into bureaucracy' ... I cry "Horseshit!"
... not because I think the technical solution is a bad one, but because I think the bureaucratic-administrative implementation is flawed, and the flaw is masked and sugar-coated in benevolent kindness.
I cry "Horseshit!"
Find a way to return this to 'everyone enters the system equally to all others already in the system', while keeping your 'spam protection' measures available to you.
Then, rethink your stance on encryption; we are only days (weeks, perhaps) away from a new implementation of peer-based Internet-working (specifically for portable/wearable devices) in order to bypass forthcoming FCC bandwith choking laws (which will never see the light of congressional halls), and multi-key encryption will be part-and-parcel of that process.
FOSS has value, encryption has value. Neither exists in a vacuum.
"An error doesn't become a mistake, until you refuse to correct it." - John F. Kennedy
Or you can get off your high
Or you can get off your high horse and realize that CPO is not an ISP, PennMUSH is not a service provider, Javelin is not a bureaucrat, Net Neutrality (on CPO or elsewhere) is not threatened, and your tinfoil hat is starting to fall apart.
This system works, Javelin is less likely to abuse his powers here than you are to suddenly turn into a beardless woman.
Net neutrality has nothing to do with spam. Nobody wants spam - That's why CAN-SPAM was passed and is still effective. As Javelin stated, he spends maybe a few minutes every other week or so worrying about this kind of thing. To implement encryption, authentication and more would take him more time than this would otherwise take up in a decade - And be less useful, more error prone and letting more spam through.
You have a good cause, but it's misdirected. When somebody wants World Peace, it's not effective if he starts yelling at the people playing Croquet to put down their hammers.
AT&T is logging and passing everything onto Uncle Sam on request. Comcast and most of the other ISPs are grabbing DNS wildcards for advertising, despite the backlash a few years back against Verizon. Mobile companies are stealthily replacing Google search on their phones with Bing search, causing many phones to crash and annoying their users. Not to mention the huge messes in politics these days.
All that, and you're spending your time demanding things of a website that averages maybe 3 posts a month, by a group of people volunteering their time, with no financing.
"Quotations are a serviceable substitute for wit." - Oscar Wilde
conspiracy theory
get off your high horse and
[...]
your tinfoil hat is starting to fall apart
since the rest of your entire post is based on this ad hominem attack, it is all just as irrelevant.
The eagerness and passion with which you deliver it, on behalf of Javelin (who invited me to read the excerpt, referenced in the link, and to apply it appropriately - as I believe I have, in this instance), make it quite clear that you not only missed the point, but that you fear the underlying implication as well.
Stamping it with the 'Oscar Wilde' seal of approval confirms that this is all your message was - insubstantial and even less meaningful - an ad hominem attack.
Good day to you.
Thanks for the opinion. I'm
Thanks for the opinion. I'm going to stick for now with the current approach, because I think a delay of a couple days in getting good signal into cpo is probably better than a couple of days of spammy noise before I can clean it up (and it takes more time to clean it up, partly because spambots are pretty energetic).
(P.S. If you want to see what
(P.S. If you want to see what I mean about spambots, turn on the "Who's new" block)