Slackware Forums Alive Again!

HappySlacker writes "Looks like the forums from slackware.com that Patrick Volkerding (Slackware's daddy) had to take down because of massive trolling are fully active again after 2 years of hibernation as read-only at userlocal.com." Update: 01/21 19:23 GMT by T : Jeremy from LinuxQuestions.org points out the forums on that site, which is recommended on Slackware's links page.

Comments

Why don't they use slashdots karma system

[Billly Gates]

Old timers might remember what slashdot was like 2-3 years ago when trolls represented something like %50 the posts here. I almost stopped comming here and many members of my l.u.g. quit comming altogether because of it. First cmd Taco put in bans on individuals with certian nicknames from posting after so many flamebait posts.

Then I remember seeing the same posts over and over again with nicks like "asfdd3456-troll". I guess the trolls liked what the spammers were doing so they actually wrote scripts to generate tens of thousands of "..hot gritz down my pants..and Natalie Portman petrified.." posts with a different name each! Unbelievable.

This became unbearable then cmd Taco put in IP address bans. This was a lifesaver and cut down on the amount of trolls. Of course trolls can still just go to a library and post or spoof an address but it cut down trolling dramatically. Cut it down to half of what it was.

Last trolls began to experiment with page widening with lots of "."'s so an annoying horizontal scroll would be needed to read all the posts. Very very annoying indeed. A few lines of code to slashcode made that problem go away.

Anyway Patrick should use slashcode for his forum or write scripts that are similiar to slashdot's to get rid of the obnoxious trolls and use a karma system. This is the only way to ban them.

Re:Why don't they use slashdots karma system

[jmulvey]

[Insert the man with censored lips icon here]

So where does it stop, and who draws the line? Transparency is also the key here, as many longtime slashdot readers will also agree.

Here's a key discovery of mine from Slashdot: The ability to moderate a comment is more powerful than the ability to submit a comment.

How did I learn this nugget of knowledge? Look at my history, and you'll find that although I often post the alternative (i.e. "commercial") viewpoint, I'm not a "troll" in the traditional sense.

Yet I appear to have been banned from ever moderating. It has been at least 6-9 months, and I read slashdot several times a day. Every day.

My semi-alternative viewpoint in this forum has resulted in my sanction to the fringes of read-only activism.

Ultimately, "trolldom" is just another grey area of battleground where some will go overboard, and some will not do enough. Slashdot is naturally in the middle of this difficult new area of content management.

I understand the difficulties involved and risks. I don't blame Slashdot. In fact, I've learned a nugget of knowledge from the experience.

I just wish my relatively nonradical ideas didn't result is such obvious squelching of my voice here.

Signed,
a horrible, horrible "Troll"

Re:Why don't they use slashdots karma system

[JimDabell]

Old timers might remember what slashdot was like 2-3 years ago when trolls represented something like %50 the posts here.

They still do, don't they? I've adjusted my settings to only browse at 2+, so I don't see a lot of it any more. Perhaps you have done the same.

Then I remember seeing the same posts over and over again with nicks like "asfdd3456-troll". I guess the trolls liked what the spammers were doing so they actually wrote scripts to generate tens of thousands of "..hot gritz down my pants..and Natalie Portman petrified.." posts with a different name each! Unbelievable.

Simple to solve, use a turing test to prevent automated registrations.

This became unbearable then cmd Taco put in IP address bans.

Yeah, I remember that. I (and presumably every other user of my isp) was banned for months after I went to the trouble of emailing them the details of my isp's proxy servers (to avoid the "you can't post" page).

Last trolls began to experiment with page widening with lots of "."'s so an annoying horizontal scroll would be needed to read all the posts. Very very annoying indeed. A few lines of code to slashcode made that problem go away.

And created a new problem in its place: the "phantom space" bug, that breaks urls. A better solution would be to only allow long text from registered users, and only once per day, or perhaps warning them before posting something that is broken. Or (heaven forbid) actually using css to lay out the page instead of that nasty table hack.

Anyway Patrick should use slashcode for his forum or write scripts that are similiar to slashdot's to get rid of the obnoxious trolls and use a karma system. This is the only way to ban them.

Slashdot's system for coping with trolls sucks. Deliberately annoying people is against the t&cs of most isps, when it started to be a problem, the admins should have started notifying the trollers' isps.

/. Math

[tiny69]

Last post before forums were shut down: 12-14-01 13:24

First post after forums became active again: 01-20-03 21:07

Means "2 years of hibernation" on /.

There's two sides to that...

[BrokenHalo]

then cmd Taco put in IP address bans. This was a lifesaver ...

I've never trolled in my life, but slashcode has blocked my entire netblock (an ISP with a strictly enforced AUP and who would have pulled the plug on any miscreant if asked) for several months now. So despite my karma being "excellent", I can now only post via an anonymous relay. It was a major piss-off that my objections were just ignored.

Re:Now maybe they can work on the store

[jericho4.0]

Ohhhhh. Poor thing. :-)
Just kidding, always glad to see another newbie. If you havn't tried Debian yet, you shoud,. Or any other dist that uses apt-get, debians package manager. Apt-get makes dependencies a thing of the past.

It will not help you with all the other linux details though. Sorry. Please keep in mind that making an industrial strength OS that is also easy for anyone to use is a tall order, and people are working on it as we speak.

Glad to see signs of life

[bindster]

Now that I can see that there are some lights on at Slackware, I'm going to help them polish their distro with some apps/scripts/customizations which would be Slack specific; I hope this development spurs more people to do the same, and also to create a dialogue for those who are seeking to help improve the distro. I know of a couple things that could use some work too... how about that rc.sysvinit which doesn't even work? Maybe replace it with an optional full SVR4 init system, or have the option for a kernel with an compiled boot logo. Perhaps even our own version of a package download tool (tgz-get?). Hopefully this will open the door to all that.